THE  HOMES   AND   HAUNTS 


OF 


OUB    ELDER    POETS 


^^^K 


THE 


HOMES    AND    HAUI^TS 


OF 


OUE  ELDEE  POETS. 

■11,      r\      S±LCFX^.jCLourucL 


WITH  POETBAITS   AND    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


NEW   YORK: 
D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

1,  3,  AND  5  BOND   STREET. 


COPYRIGHT    BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY, 

1881. 


b^t:' 


O  ONTENT  S. 


William  Cullen  Bryant 


By  H.  N.  Powers. 


Kalph  Waldo  Emerson 


By  F.  B.  Sanborn.         31 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow 


By  R.  H.  Stoddard.       67 


John  Greenleaf  Whittier 


By  R.  H.   Stoddard.     105 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 


By  F.  B.  Sanborn.       137 


James  Russell  Lowell 


By  F.  B.  Sanborn.       163 


257973 


The  Portraits  in  this  volume  of  Bryant,  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Whittier, 
and  Holmes,  are  from  drawings  by  Wyatt  Eaton,  and  the  Views,  from  draiv- 
ings  or  sketches  ly  R.  Swain  Gifford,  Homer  Martin,  Francis  Lathrop, 
R.  RioRDAN,  G.  M.  White,  C.  A.  Vanderhoof,  A.  R.  Waud,  and  Apple- 
ton  Brown. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


William  Cullen  Bryant  : 

Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse.  p^^e 

The  Bryant  Homestead  at  Cummington,  Massachusetts  .  .  .  .1 

The  Rivulet,  Cummington    ........  4 

The  Homestead  Library  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .6 

Approach  to  the  Homestead  :   the  Old  Poplar      .....  7 

School-house  on  the  Bryant  Estate,  Cummington        .  .  .  .  .9 

View  of  Graylock     .........  10 

Cummington  Library,  founded  by  Mr.  Bryant  .  .  .  .  .13 

Grave  of  Mr.  Bryant's  Father,  Cummington  .  .  .  .  .14 

View  of  Hempstead  Harbor  from  the  Hill  East  of  Mr,  Bryant's  House  at  Roslyn,     15 
Scenes  at  "Cedarmere,"  Mx.  Bryant's  Home  at  Roslyn         ,  .  .  .17 

Among  the  Trees  at  Cedarmere      .  .  .  .  .  .  .19 

View  of  Cedarmere         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .20 

Library  at  Cedarmere  ........  21 

The  Hall,  presented  to  Roslyn  by  Mr.  Bryant  .  .  .  .  .24 

The  Parlor  at  Cedarmere     ........  25 

View  from  the  Front  Door,  Cedarmere  .  .  .  ,  .  .28 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  : 

Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse. 

The  Old  Manse         .........  31 

The  Emerson  House       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .34 

Concord  from  Lee's  Hill      .  .  .  .  .  ,  .  .36 

The  Old  North  Bridge  rebuilt ........     39 

Walden  Pond  .........  43 

Emerson's  Library  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .50 

The  Alcott  House     .  .  .   "         .  .  .-  .  .  .56 

The  Entry  at  the  Old  Manse    ........     60 

The  Left-hand  Front  Room  of  the  Old  Manse     .....  62 

Graves  of  Hawthorne  and  Thoreau  in  Sleepy  Hollow  Cemetery        .  .  .66 


Vlll 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  : 
Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse, 
Longfellow's  Drawing-room 
The  Study  ...... 

A  Corner  of  the  Study         .... 

The  Mansion       ...... 

"The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs"    . 

The  Rear  Lawn,  looking  toward  Longfellow's  House 

West  Side  of  Longfellow's  House  . 

The  Avenue  North  of  the  House 

The  Old  Willow       ..... 

View  from  the  Rear  Piazza       .... 

View  from  the  Piazza  .... 

The  Western  Entrance   ..... 

View  across  the  Lawn,  north-west  of  the  House  . 


PAGE 

67 

70 
72 
73 
75 
77 
79 
82 
83 
87 
89 
95 
100 


John  Greenleap  Whittier  : 

Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse. 

Whittier's  Birthplace,  near  Haverhill,  Mass.    . 

The  Old  School-house,  Haverhill,  Mass.     . 

The  Whittier  House,  Amesbury,  Mass. 

The  Merrimack  and  Powow 

Whittier's  Brook  .  .  .  .  , 

View  from  the  Porch  at  Oak  Knoll,  Danvers,  Mass. 

Under  the  Oaks  at  Oak  Knoll 

The  Vista  View  at  Oak  Knoll 

Murmuring  Brooks  .  .  .  .  , 


105 
107 
110 
113 
116 
121 
126 
132 
136 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  : 

Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse. 

Stairway  in  the  Old  Holmes  Mansion 

Birthplace  of  Doctor  Holmes,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Portrait  of  Dorothy  Quincy 

View  of  Lenox    ..... 

Banks  of  the  Housatonic,  at  Pittsfield 


137 
141 
146 
150 
157 


James  Russell  Lowell  : 

Portrait,  and  Autograph  Verse. 

' '  Elmwood, "  Residence  of  James  Russell  Lowell 

The  Charles  River    .  .  .  .  . 

Salt  Meadows  on  the  Charles    . 

"...  The  brink  of  some  wood-nestled  lakelet " 

"'Tis  a  woodland  enchanted". 

"It  winds  athwart  the  windy  hill"  , 


163 
168 
170 
183 

187 
189 


-;V'^  €^y\on 


\yctx,c»^  o^^'ffjL^  ~tt^UiJ^  ^UCZ)    /ifettT"'^^*^^^ 


L 


THE    BRYANT    HOUESTEAO   AT   CCUMIN6T0N,    MASSACHUSETTS. 


WILLIAM  CULLEN   BRYANT. 


The  scenery  of  Cummington,  Massachusetts,  is  more  impressive 
from  its  breadth  and  elevation  than  from  any  feature  of  singular  sub- 
limity. The  earth  here  is  heaved  up  in  broad-shouldered  hills,  sepa- 
rated by  narrow  glens  and  leafy  ravines.     On  the  slopes  of  these  great 


2  THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

swells,  almost  mountain-like  in  height — ^for  some  are  two  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea — are  thrifty  farms,  with  occasional  breadths  of  barren 
soil,  spongy  mead,  wild  copse,  and  piles  of  out-cropping  rock.  Fre- 
quent springs  of  pure  water  issue  from  the  hills  and  the  borders  of 
venerable  groves.  On  the  highest  lands  the  forests  have  still  their 
primitive  wildness.  The  streams  are  swift  and  shallow  over  their 
rocky  channels,  wdth  here  and  there  deep  pools  under  the  dark  shad- 
ows, where  the  trout  hides  when  the  heats  of  summer  shrivel  the  veins 
that  feed  the  sylvan  springs  of  the  hills  above. 

From  the  porch  of  the  Cummington  mansion,  where  the  poet  Bry- 
ant was  born,  one  looks  over  a  wide  landscape  some  eight  miles  across, 
which  embraces  all  the  features  that  are  peculiar  to  that  section  of 
Massachusetts,  except  the  thickly  wooded  highlands  to  the  northwest. 
The  center  of  the  view  is  hollowed  to  a  deep  and  narrow  valley,  where 
flows  a  branch  of  the  Westfield  River,  and  on  the  eastern  rim  are  the 
pleasant  slopes  of  Plainfield.  Spring  lags  on  these  high  grounds,  and 
autumn  here  puts  on  imperial  splendors ;  for  the  trees,  among  which 
the  sugar-maple  predominates,  are  of  a  kind  to  glow  royally  under  the 
effects  of  frost.  In  summer,  the  landscape  is  sumptuous  with  verdure, 
but  in  winter  its  aspect  is  usually  severe  and  dreary,  though  sometimes 
it  has  a  magnificent  desolation. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  the  house  are  objects  which  have  lent  their 
influence  to  the  poet's  song,  and  which  will  always  be  associated  ^vith 
his  name.  Just  beyond  a  meadow  to  the  south  is  the  grove  wdiich 
inspired  his  noble  lines,  "  Inscription  for  an  Entrance  to  a  Wood  " : 

"  Stranger,  if  thou  hast  learned  a  truth  which  needs 
No  school  of  long  experience,  that  the  world 
Is  full  of  guilt  and  misery,  and  hast  seen 
Enough  of  all  its  sorrows,  crimes,  and  cares. 
To  tire  thee  of  it,  enter  this  wild  wood 
And  view  the  haunts  of  Nature." 

Under  the  tall  maples  here  grows  the  "  Yellow  Violet,"  whose  early 
advent  he  welcomed  in  verses  of  classic  simplicity.     Further  down  the 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  3 

hill-side,  where  the  soil  is  damp  Avith  hidden  springs,  flourishes  in 
season  the  "  Fringed  Gentian,"  Avhose  sweet  lesson  he  interpreted  in  his 
maturer  years.  In  the  rear  of  the  homestead,  only  a  few  rods  remote, 
is  "The  Rivulet,"  the  scene  of  his  childish  delight  and  his  boyish 
dreams. 

"  This  little  rill  that  from  the  springs 

Of  yonder  grove  its  current  brings, 

Plays  on  the  slope  awhile,  and  then 

Goes  prattling  into  groves  again, 

Oft  to  its  warbling  waters  drew 

My  little  feet,  when  life  was  new. " 

Taking  the  road  northward  one  comes,  after  a  pleasant  walk  of  fifteen 
minutes,  to  the  bleak  hill  where  beneath  brambles  and  weeds  are  hid- 
den "  The  Two  Graves  "  of  the  old  couple  described  Avith  such  touch- 
ing fidelity  in  his  poem.     Truly, 

*"  'Tis  a  neighborhood  that  knows  no  strife." 

Going  a  little  further  on  that  romantic  path,  one  gets  amid  cooler  and 
wilder  solitudes  of  forest  and  rock  and  impetuous  stream,  where 
"  Thanatopsis  "  might  have  been  meditated,  and  where  more  than  once 
has  sparkled  the  royal  jewelry  portrayed  in  "  A  Winter  Piece."  Here 
among  the  Highlands  is  Deer  Hill,  and  in  the  distance  northward  rises 
the  Williamstown  range  where,  highest  of  all, 

"  Stands  Graylock  silent  in  the  summer  sky." 

Retracing  our  steps  to  the  house  and  going  southward,  we  pass  the 
neat  school-house  lately  built  for  the  children  in  the  neighborhood ; 
and  then  further  on  the  old  burial-place  where  sleep  the  parents  of  the 
poet.  Turning  to  the  left,  we  go  down  into  the  valley  of  East  Cum- 
mington  village,  on  whose  outskirts,  where  the  Agawam,  a  branch  of 
the  Westfield  River,  makes  a  curve  in  a  lovely  nook,  is  the  fire-proof 
library  which  Mr.  Bryant  presented  to  his  native  town.  Taking  the 
nearest  road  up  the  hill  on  our  return,  ^ve  soon  come  to  the  site  of  the 


4  THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

old  church,  of  which  not  a  vestige  remains,  where  the  family  attended 
in  the  poet's  youth,  and  to  fields  familiar  to  his  boyish  sports  and 
toils.     There  is  hardly  a  spot  here  but  is  suggestive  of  something 


THE    RIVULET,    CUMMINGTON. 


significant  in  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  generation  that  has  passed 
away.  Human  nature  was  as  full  of  foibles  and  self-assertion  a  cen- 
tury ago  as  now,  and  the  "  cloth  "  was  not  always  held  in  reverence. 
The  first  Congregational  minister  settled  in  Cummington  was  the  Rev. 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  5 

James  Briggs.  He  was  in  time  the  Happy  o^vner  of  a  few  slieep, 
which  he  highly  valued,  and  in  whose  welfare  he  w^as  supposed  to 
have  quite  as  much  solicitude  as  was  consistent  with  a  man  whose 
treasures  did  not  belong  to  this  fleeting  world.  Now,  a  neighbor  of 
the  parson,  for  some  reason,  had  a  hard  grudge  against  him,  and  was 
impatient  to  gratify  it.  The  opportunity  finally  came.  One  evening 
he  appeared  at  the  parsonage,  and,  in  a  manner  betraying  the  liveliest 
concern,  informed  Mr.  Briggs  that  one  of  his  most  valuable  sheep  was 
very  sick  down  in  a  field  near  the  highway.  The  anxious  clergyman 
sped  to  the  place  described  mth  breathless  haste,  and  lo  !  there  in  the 
corner  of  a  fence,  dead  drunk,  was  a  favorite  parishioner — a  sick  sheep 
indeed.     The  neighbor  doubtless  had  his  revenge. 

The  homestead  property  at  Cummington,  with  additions  making 
an  estate  of  more  than  four  hundred  acres,  came  into  the  possession 
of  Mr.  Bryant  some  years  ago.  The  work  of  renovating  and  enlarging 
the  old  house  was  finished  in  1864,  and  here,  until  the  time  of  his 
death,  Mr.  Bryant  spent  the  months  of  August  and  September  of  each 
year.  He  planted  orchards  and  groves  of  larch  and  birch,  built  roads, 
and  inaugurated  a  system  of  improvements  that  greatly  enhanced  the 
value  of  the  property. 

William  Cullen  Bryant  was  born  November  3,  1794.  With  his 
earliest  years  was  shown  a  passionate  love  of  nature,  which  marked 
his  whole  life,  and  which  is  such  a  conspicuous  feature  of  his  poetry. 
He  tells  us  how  his  infant  feet  were  drawn  to  the  little  rivulet,  near 
his  father's  door,  and  as  they  grew  stronger  he  began  to  ramble  over 
the  hills  and  amid  the  wild  woods  about  his  home.  It  is  likely  that 
the  boy  made  verses  before  he  was  suspected  of  such  a  thing,  for  it 
was  as  natural  for  him  to  put  his  heart  into  numbers  as  for  the  birds 
to  sing.  The  first  account,  however,  that  we  have  of  his  poetic  gift 
is  of  a  paraphrase  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Job,  in  his  tenth 
year.  This  work  his  grandfather  hired  him  to  do,  and  paid  him 
ninepence  when  it  was  finished.  Not  long  after  this  he  wrote  a  poem 
on  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  and  another  on  the  death  of  a  cousin.  About 
this  time  his  verses  began  to  find  their  way  into  the  "Hampshire 


6  THE  HOMES  AND   HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Gazette,"  and  so  were  well  circulated  in  the  neighborhood.  His 
father,  Dr.  Peter  Bryant,  a  gentleman  of  very  fine  mind  and  culture, 
was  quick  to  detect  and  encourage  his  son's  gift,  and  began  early  to 
cherish  high  hope  of  his  future  career.  Dr.  Bryant  himself  was  a 
good  writer  of  Hudibrastic  verse,  and  the  poetic  tendency  in  the 
family  can  be  traced  back  for  several  generations.  It  is  plain  that 
his  influence   over  his  son  was  every  way  wholesome,  and   that  his 


THE    HOMKSTEAD    LIBRARY. 


training  was  given  with  the  most  judicious  discrimination.  Fortu- 
nate was  the  son  in  the  genial  influences  of  home  at  the  very  budding 
of  his  genius,  and  happy  the  noble  parent  in  having  so  apt  and  rare  a 
pupil ! 

Before  he  was  fourteen  years  old  the  young  poet  produced  the 
"Embargo,"  a  satirical  political  poem,  which  was  published  in  1810. 
A  second  edition  was  called  for,  which  contained  several  additional 
poems,  among  them  "The  Spanish  Revolution."     As  the  "Monthly 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  7 

Anthology,"  a  critical  journal  of  Boston,  had  expressed  disbelief  in 
the  alleged  youth  of  the  writer,  a  certificate  to  the  fact  was  appended 
in  consequence  to  this  edition. 

At  the  age  of  fourteen  young  Bryant  began  the'  study  of  Latin 
with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Snell,  of  Brookfield,  and  the  next  year  took 


APPROACH    TO   THE    HOMESTEAD : 
THE    OLD    POPLAR. 


up  Greek  with  such  ardor  under  the  direction  of  the  Rev.  Moses  Hal- 
lock,  of  Plainfield,  that  in  two  months  he  had  read  the  entire  New 
Testament  in  the  original.  At  sixteen  he  entered  Williams  College  as 
a  sophomore,  but  left  at  the  close  of  his  second  term  with  an  honorable 
dismissal,  intending  to  enter  the  junior  class  at  Yale  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  collegiate  year,  and  to  finish  his  course  at  that  institution. 


8  THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS    OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

He  was  fully  prepared  for  the  junior  class  when  the  time  arrived  for 
application  at  Yale,  but  the  straitened  circumstances  of  his  father  com- 
pelled him  to  forego  his  warmly  cherished  intention.  He  continued, 
however,  to  pursue  his  studies  with  the  same  conscientious  devotion 
as  if  he  were  under  the  eye  of  a  professor,  with  all  the  stimulus  of  the 
recitation  room. 

The  impression  of  his  boyhood  left  on  his  brothers,  Arthur  and 
John  H.  Bryant,  who  are  still  living,  is  yet  pleasantly  vivid.  His 
return  home  during  his  vacations  was  always  hailed  with  joy  by  the 
family.  He  was  loved  and  admired  by  all,  and  his  society  gave  new 
animation  to  the  household.  He  delighted  his  younger  brothers  by 
his  lively  and  playful  spirit,  frolicking  with  thenji  and  tossing  them  in 
his  arms,  as  if  gifted  with  unusual  strength,  and  he  astonished  them 
by  his  fervid  declamation  of  his  "  Indian  War  Song,"  translations  of 
"  (Edipus  Tyrannus,"  and  other  vigorous  poems.  They  were  proud  of 
their  brothei',  who  seemed  to  them  so  learned  and  strong,  and  whose 
conduct  they  tried  to  imitate.  This  was  at  a  time  when  his  intellect- 
ual powers  were  fast  ripening,  and  when  his  consciousness  of  life,  as 
the  poet  sees  and  experiences  it,  was  becoming  more  and  more  quick- 
ening and  profound.  This  period  in  his  career  has  a  peculiar  interest, 
and  this  young  man,  with  his  fresh  spirit  and  hopes,  so  cordial  and 
sprightly  in  the  household,  so  docile  to  parental  guidance,  so  studious 
and  mastering  his  books  with  such  ease,  so  deep  in  communion  with 
nature,  already  moved  with  the  solemn  impulses  that  were  soon  to 
find  a  voice  in  his  "  Thanatopsis,"  and  withal  so  pure  and  simple,  and 
apparently  so  unconscious  of  the  scope  and  rare  quality  of  his  powers, 
presents  a  picture  which  we  love  to  contemplate  as  the  frontispiece  of 
a  life  which  has  gone  on  with  such  stately  beauty  to  its  place  among 
men. 

Mr.  Bryant  pursued  his  legal  studies  for  two  years  with  Judge 
Samuel  Howe,  of  Worthington,  and  finished  them  with  the  Hon.  Wil- 
liam Baylies,  of  Bridgewater.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at  Plym- 
outh, Massachusetts,  in  1815,  and  was  then  twenty-one  years  old.  For 
a  year  he  practiced  his  profession  at  Plainfield,  near  his  birthplace, 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


9 


'  where  lie  wrote  "  Lines  to  a  Water-fowl.''  The  lesson  of  trust  in  the 
divine  goodness  has  no  such  perfect  expression  in  literature  as  in  this 
poem.  In  both  form  and  substance  it  is  faultless.  Like  the  other 
productions  of  its  author,  its  conception  was  natural.  One  evening  he 
saw  a  wild-duck  flying  across  a  sky  of  marvelous  beauty,  and  a  picture 
of  the  divine  providence  was  levealed  to  him.  Southey's  poem  "  Ebb- 
tide "  suggested  the  form  of  the  stanza,  and  his  genius  wrought  the 
elevated  and  tranquilizing  verses,  which  were  published  in  the  "  North 
American  Review,''  soon  after  the  appearance  of  his  "  Thanatopsis  "  in 


SCHOOL-HOUSE    ON    THE    BRYANT    ESTATE,    CCMMINGTON. 


the  same  periodical,  though  the  latter  production  was  not  printed  till 
perhaps  five  years  after  it  was  composed.  That  such  a  majestic  strain 
— a  chant  of  such  grand  sweep  and  power — could  be  the  work  of  a 
stripling,  has  always  been  a  marvel  in  our  literature.  His  withholding 
it  so  long  from  the  press  accords  with  the  strong  character  of  the 
singer. 

In  1817,  Mr.  Bryant  removed  to  Great  Barrington,  Massachusetts, 
where  he  remained  nine  years.  Berkshire  County  is  famous  for  its  pic- 
turesque beauty,  and  the  scenery  around  Barrington  embraces  some  of 
its  chief  attractions.  In  many  a  curve,  and  here  and  there  under  the 
shade  of  overhanging  trees,  the  Housatonic  flows  through  the  fair 
meadows  of  a  wide  valley,  bordered  by  abrupt  ridges,  densely  wooded, 


10 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


and  full  of  pleasant  farms.  Monument  Mountain  and  Green  Kiver, 
celebrated  in  our  poet's  song,  are  in  the  neigliborliood.  To  the  south- 
west are  the  noble  heights  of  the  Taconic  range,  the  most  elevated 
summits  of  the  State,  among  whose  glens  are  the  famous  Bash-bish 
Falls.  A  pleasant  drive  south  through  Sheffield  takes  one  to  the 
lovely  lakes  of  Salisbury,  Con- 
necticut. All  around  the  vil. 
lage  are  charming  nooks  of 
grove  and  glen  and  stream. 
With  all  these  places,  in  the 
course  of  time,  the  poet  be- 
came familiar. 

There  are  a  few  elderly 
people  yet  living  who  remem- 
ber Mr.  Bryant,  during  his 
residence  in  Barrington,  as  a 
reserved,  studious  man  of  the 
strictest  honor,  who  shunned 
society  and  worked  hard  at  his  profession,  and 
whose  recreation  consisted  in  long  walks  in  the 
woods  and  fields,  from  which  he  often  brought 
armfuls  of  flowers  to  analyze,  for  he  was  an  ex- 
cellent botanist.  He  continued  here  his  literary  labors,  but  did  not 
allow  them  to  hinder  his  professional  career,  which  was  successful, 
and  which  promised  to  become  very  eminent.  Several  of  the  poems 
which  he  wrote  in  Barrington  appeared  in  the  "United  States  Ga- 
zette," published  in  Boston,  and  he  also  contributed  "  Green  Eiver," 
"A  Walk  at  Sunset,"  "To  the  West  Wind,"  to  E.  H.  Dana's  "Idle 
Man."  It  was  here  that  he  composed  "  The  Ages  " — one  of  his  long- 
est and  most  notable  poems,  which  was  delivered  in  1821  before  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard,  in  Commencement  week.  This 
was  the  eventful  year  of  his  history,  as  it  saw  his  marriage  with  Miss 
Fanny  Fairchild — a  union  that,  beginning  under  happy  auspices, 
realized  the  beauty  of  its  promise. 


VIEW    OF   GRAYLOCK. 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  H 

Yielding  to  encouraging  representations,  and  particularly  to  the 
wishes  of  liis  friend,  Henry  D.  Sedgwick,  Esq.;  in  1825  Mr.  Bryant 
removed  to  New  York.  His  intention  of  pursuing  a  literary  career 
was  carried  into  effect  by  accepting  the  associate  editorship  of  the 
"  New  York  Review,"  a  periodical  of  high  rank,  which,  in  the  course 
of  a  year,  however,  was  merged  into  "The  United  States  Review  and 
Literary  Gazette."  In  these  monthlies  Mr.  Bryant  published  some  of 
his  most  popular  poems,  such  as  "The  Death  of  the  Flowers"  and 
"  The  African  Chief,"  and  also  many  admirable  reviews.  Among  his 
contributors  were  R.  H.  Dana,  Robert  C.  Sands,  and  Fitz-Green 
Halleck. 

Mr,  Bryant  began  to  write  for  the  "  New  York  Evening  Post "  the 
year  following  his  arrival  in  New  York,  and  in  1827  became  one  of 
its  editors.  This  newspaper  was  founded  by  William  Coleman  in 
1801,  and  after  the  death  of  this  able  writer  Mr.  Bryant  became  its 
editor-in-chief — a  position  which  he  sustained  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
There  was  first  associated  with  him  William  Leggett,  who  continued 
this  relation  till  1836,  and  who  was  a  man  of  remarkable  force  and 
courageous  spirit. 

"  The  words  of  fire  that  from  his  pen 
Were  flung  upon  the  fervid  page, — 
Still  move,  still  shake  the  hearts  of  men. 
Amid  a  cold  and  coward  age." 

Parke  Godwin  (Mr.  Bryant's  son-in-law)  and  the  Hon.  John  Bige- 
low,  gentlemen  whose  literary  eminence  is  well  known,  were  also  for 
many  years  connected  with  the  paper.  Its  influence  upon  the  thought 
and  morals  of  the  nation  has  been  wholesome  and  helpful  to  a  re- 
markable degree.  It  has  been  a  model  of  good  taste^  correct  English, 
pure  principles,  and  an  intelligent  and  independent  treatment  of  the 
great  topics  of  public  interest.  During  Mr.  Bryant's  editorial  career 
of  more  than  fifty  years  were  waged  the  most  important  political  con- 
flicts in  the  history  of  the  republic,  and  in  these  he  has  manfully 
participated.      On  questions  of   national   policy  concerning  the  old 


12       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR   ELDER  POETS. 

United  States  Bank,  the  war  with  Mexico,  the  admission  of  slavery 
into  the  territories  and  its  abolition,  the  tariff,  the  Ashburton  treaty, 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  amnesty,  the  Alabama  claims,  the  San 
Domingo  muddle,  civil  service,  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and 
other  subjects  of  vital  importance,  his  utterances  were  prompt,  un- 
quivocal,  and  just ;  and  he  maintained  his  principles  with  an  unshaken 
constancy.  He  never  waited  to  catch  the  breath  of  popular  opinion 
before  flinging  abroad  his  standard.  The  question  with  him  always 
was,  "  What  is  right  ?  What  subserves  human  interests  best  ?  What 
is  the  province  and  duty  of  government  ? "  And  so  throughout  his 
career  he  was  the  uncompromising  enemy  of  political  rings,  class 
legislation,  and  jobbery,  and  corruption  of  all  sorts,  and  the  friend  and 
ally  of  humane  and  liberal  institutions,  righteous  reform,  and  the 
administration  of  impartial  justice.  Indeed,  there  is  no  species  of 
political  iniquity  that  he  did  not  vigorously  assail,  and  no  doctrines 
of  permanent  advantage  to  the  commonwealth  that  he  did  not  judi- 
ciously advocate  and  set  firmer  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  He 
was  a  statesman  of  the  best  type,  and,  as  was  said  by  a  distinguished 
senator,  "he  is  a  teacher  of  statesmen."  He  asked  nothing  of  his 
country  but  the  privilege  to  serve  her  interests.  Not  even  his  bit- 
terest political  j  opponents  ever  accused  him  of  a  desire  for  public 
office.  It  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  his  great  career  that,  amid  the  en- 
grossing labors  and  cares  of  editorial  life,  he  kept  always  a  sweet  tem- 
per for  scholastic  pursuits. 

Mr.  Bryant  traveled  extensively  in  this  country  and  abroad.  His 
first  visit  to  Europe  was  made  in  1834.  In  1852  his  journey  was 
extended  to  Egypt  and  Palestine.  He  also  traveled  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  in  his  later  years  in  Mexico.  With  many  of  the  countries 
and  literatures  of  continental  Europe  he  was  familiar  by  protracted 
visits  and  studious  observation,  having  been  no  less  than  six  times 
abroad.  During  his  visits  to  Great  Britain  he  Avas  cordially  received 
by  many  distinguished  men  of  letters,  but  he  was  perhaps  on  the 
most  intimate  terms  with  Wordsworth  and  Rogers.  His  days  at 
Ambleside  he  remembered  with  pleasure.     He  always  found  Words- 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


13 


worth  amiable,  glad  to  walk  and  talk,  and  not  disagreeably  egotis- 
tic. Mr.  Bryant  received  particular  attentions  from  the  poet  Rog- 
ers, with  whom  he  frequently  dined  and  breakfasted.  Among  the 
many  interesting  reminiscences  of  his  intercourse  with  the  English 
poets,  there  is  an  anecdote  of  Rogers  which  is  too  characteristic  to 
withhold.  On  a  visit  to  London  in  1849,  Rogers  said  to  him:  "Our 
poets  seem  to  be  losing  their  minds.  Campbell's  son  w^as  in  a  mad- 
house, and,  if  the  father  had  been  put  there  in  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  it  would  have  been  the  proper  place  for  him.  Bowles  became 
weak-minded,  and  as  for  Southey,  you  know  what  happened  to  him. 
Moore  was  here  the  other  day,  and  I  asked,  '  Moore,  how  long  have 
you  been  in  town  ? '     '  Three  or  four  days,'  he  replied.     '  What !  three 


CUMMINGTON    LIBRARY,    FOUNDED    I!Y    MR.    BRYANT. 


or  four  days  and  not  let  me  know  it  ? '  'I  beg  pardon,'  said  he,  put- 
ting his  hand  to  his  forehead,  ^  I  believe  I  came  to  towni  this  morning.' 
As  to  Wordsworth,  a  gentleman  who  saw  him  lately  said  to  me,  '  You 


14        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

would  not  iind  Wordsworth  mucli  changed  ;  lie  talks  rationally.' " 
The  letters  of  Mr.  Bryant  \^Titten  during  his  travels  are  graceful  and 
valuable  compositions,  showing  his  enjoyment  of  natural  scenery,  his 
accurate  studies  of  society  and  governments,  and  his  interest  in  all 
that  concerns  human  welfare. 

In  1845  he  purchased  the  Roslyn  estate,  a  beautiful  piece  of  prop- 
erty lying  along  Hempstead  Harbor,  Long  Island,  within  easy  dis- 
tance of  New  York,  yet  far  enough  remote  for  the  seclusion  that  is  so 
grateful  to  the  scholar.  It  is  said  that  the  name  which  Mr.  Bryant 
gave  to  the  village  was  suggested  by  the  fact  recorded  in  the  town 


GRAVE    OF    Mil.    BRVANT'S    FATHER,    CUMMINGTON. 


annals,  that  the  British  marched  out  of  Hempstead  to  the  tune  of 
"  Roslyn  Castle."  The  frame  of  the  Roslyn  mansion  is  at  least  one 
hundred  years  old,  but  the  building  has  been  repaired  and  enlarged 
with  admirable  taste  and  judgment,  so  that,  while  it  has  every  needed 
convenience  for  a  country  residence,  it  is  an  harmonious  feature  of  the 
scenery.  It  is  happily  located,  being  sheltered  by  wooded  hills  on 
the  north  and  commanding  beautiful  views  of  the  ample  grounds  of 
the  premises,  the  bay,  and  its  lovely  shores.  In  the  poet's  hands  th^ 
place  has  been  improved  and  embellished  till  it  has  very  many  attrac- 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


15 


tions,  but  nothing  is  overdone.  In  the  gi'ounds  around  the  house  are 
a  great  variety  of  fruits  and  flowers  that  thrive  in  that  genial  climate. 
In  the  hollow  of  the  spacious  lawn  below  the  mansion  is  a  pretty  lake 
fed  by  living  springs  which  issue  from  its  upper  bank,  and  shaded  on 
its  opposite  embankment  by  a  thicket  of  evergreens,  trees  festooned 
^vith  creepers,  and  flowering  shrubs.  Amid  a  cluster  of  these  stands 
an  old  mill,  that  is  turned  by  the  stream  from  the  lake,  which  adds 
cheerful  music  to  its  generous  sei*vice.  On  the  brow  of  the  slope,  a 
little  way  from  the  garden,  stand  the  immemorial  pear-trees  which  are 
so  gracefully  mentioned  in  the  poem  "  Among  the  Trees," 

"  That  with  spring-time  burst 
Into  such  breadth  of  bloom." 

It  was   the  poet's  custom,  when  the  fruit  was  ripe,  to  give  the 
children  of  the  neighborhood  a  festival  beneath  theii*  branches,  where 


VIEW    OF   HEMPSTEAD    HARBOR    FROM    THE    HILL    EAST    OF    MR.    BRYANT'S    HOUSE    AT    ROSLTN 


16        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

they  could  feast  and  play  to  their  hearts'  content.  Here  a  swing  was 
erected  for  their  amusement,  and  the  sports  and  pleasures  were  en- 
joyed by  the  host,  whose  heart  never  grew  old. 

Going  up  the  hill  above  the  house,  one  wanders  in  the  lanes  and 
pastures  among  the  maples  and  apple-trees  and  evergreens  which  Mr. 
Bryant  planted,  and  from  the  different  points  of  the  uplands  looks 
off  on  a  prospect  diversified  by  pleasant  cottages,  gardens,  fruitful 
fields,  and  the  wide  sweep  of  the  waters  of  the  bay  and  sound. 
Among  the  notable  trees  that  enhance  the  interest  of  the  place,  be- 
sides the  pears  already  mentioned,  is  a  gigantic  black-walnut,  whose 
age  is  estimated  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  whose  girth  is 
twenty-eight  feet.  Though  showing  signs  of  advanced  life,  the  tree 
gives  its  annual  harvest  of  nuts.  Only  a  little  way  from  this,  close 
together,  are  a  notable  maple  and  a  willow,  while  a  grand  old  oak 
spreads  its  arms  over  the  bank  near  the  lake  by  the  house. 

In  1872  Mr.  Bryant  presented  to  the  town  in  which  he  lived  so 
long  "  Roslyn  Hall,"  a  building  particularly  designed  for  uses  of  a 
public  character,  such  as  lectures,  concerts,  church  festivals,  and  social 
gatherings  requiring  special  accommodations. 

Some  of  Mr.  Bryant's  most  important  studies  and  literary  work 
were  done  at  h^is  home  in  Boslyn,  where  he  spent  the  months  of 
May,  June,  July,  October,  and  November,  and  usually  a  portion  of 
April.  While  he  had  a  good  many  books  in  his  New  York  residence 
and  also  in  his  house  in  Cummington,  the  larger  part  of  his  collection 
was  kept  in  his  library  at  Roslyn.  This  selection  had  evidently  been 
made  with  great  care,  and  embraces  those  works  for  which  he  had  the 
most  use  and  Avhich  covered  the  fields  of  his  favorite  studies.  Here  are 
found  the  best  editions  of  the  ancient  classics,  standard  works  in  Ger- 
man, French,  Spanish,  Italian,  the  old  English  writers,  and  the  promi- 
nent modern  productions  in  literature,  and  economic  and  theological 
science.  Mr.  Bryant  was  always  interested  in  art,  and  was  the  owner 
of  considerable  that  is  illustrative  of  this  branch  of  culture. 

Though  the  brevity  of  this  paper  forbids  any  such  thing  as  a 
critical  notice  of  Mr.  Bryant's  poetical  works,  or  even  the  mention  of 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


17 


many  of  tliem,  it 
would  lack  an  es- 
sential element  of 
sober  portraiture 
if  it  failed  to  di- 
rect attention  to 
the  chief  charac- 
teristics of  his  ge- 
nius. As  a  poet, 
he   holds   a  place 


AT  "  CEDARMKRE,"  MR.  BRYANT's  HOME  AT 
ROSLYN. 


peculiarly  and  unquestionably 
his  own.  His  individuality  is 
powerful,  and  as  admirable  as 
powerful  in  all  that  constitutes 
true  greatness.  The  basis  of 
his  intellectual  character  is 
marked  by  a  massive  solidity ; 
but,  with  his  masculine  vigor, 


18        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

his  firm,  tough,  sinewy  mental  fiber,  there  is  all  the  sprightliness,  grace- 
fulness, and  sweetness  that  are  generally  supposed,  in  the  case  of  poets, 
to  be  gifts  of  natures  cast  in  a  less  heroic  mold.  He  was  a  great  artist,  as 
well  as  a  true  seer.  For,  while  his  glance  pierced  to  the  soul  of  things, 
he  knew  how  to  give  the  proper  form  to  his  vision  in  the  symbols  of 
human  speech.  His  felicitous  language,  his  rhythmic  grace,  the  com- 
pression and  suggestiveness  of  his  thought,  his  tenderness,  the  breadth 
of  his  range,  the  fidelity  of  his  portraiture,  the  dignity  and  symmetry 
of  his  creations,  only  go  to  show  the  extraordinary  qualities  of  the 
man,  the  vitality  of  his  contact  with  nature,  and  the  great  life  that  he 
lived  in  himself.  Back  of  his  work  is  his  strong,  rich,  masterful  per- 
sonality ;  and  his  eye  is  clear,  and  his  hand  sure,  and  his  voice  firm, 
while  his  soul  is  on  fire.  The  fact  that  his  poems  do  not  wear  out, 
that  they  have  a  permanent  freshness  which  is  always  welcome,  is  the 
evidence  that  they  are  alive  with  a  divine  passion.  As  Emerson  says : 
"  He  is  original  because  he  is  sincere — a  true  painter  of  the  face  of 
this  country  and  of  the  sentiment  of  his  own  people.  It  is  his  proper 
praise  that  he  first,  and  he  only,  made  known  to  mankind  our  northern 
landscape — its  summer  splendor,  its  autumn  russet,  its  winter  lights 
and  glooms.  .  .  .  So,  there  is  no  feature  of  day  or  night  in  the  coun- 
try which  does  not,  to  a  contemplative  mind,  recall  the  name  of  Bry- 
ant." In  his  verse,  Nature  is  reflected  with  her  subtile  spirit,  her 
largeness,  and  delicacy,  and  simplicity,  and  mystery.  There  is  con- 
veyed, even  in  his  briefest  poems,  an  impression  of  fullness,  which  is 
the  characteristic  of  only  singular  names  in  literature.  This  also  was 
peculiar  to  the  appearance  of  the  man,  who,  though  of  slight  build 
and  medium  height,  gave  one  the  feeling  of  a  great  presence.  While 
his  original  poems  are  not  voluminous,  for  he  wrote  no  epic  or  drama, 
they  are  comprehensive  in  their  scope  and  rich  in  subjects  of  the  deep- 
est interest  to  the  reflective  mind.  His  poetry  not  only  never  wearies, 
but  refreshes,  inspires,  consoles,  for,  as  a  priest  of  Nature,  he  imparts 
what  Nature  gives  to  the  deepest  recognition.  Take  such  poems  as 
the  "Summer  Wind,"  "The  Death  of  the  Flowers,"  "A  Summer 
Ramble,"  "The  Evening  Wind,"  "The  Prairies,"  "The  Fountain," 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


19 


AMONG    THE    TUEES    AT    CEDARMERE. 


20 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


"  The  Forest  Hymn,"  and  one  has  the  expression  of  his  best  experi- 
ence in  communion  with  the  world  without  him.  And  where  life  is 
touched  sincerely  by  the  contemplation  of  life,  what  has  more  sug- 


gestive  strams 
than       "  The 
Battle -Field," 
"  The    Night     Journey     of    a 
River,"    "  Thanatopsis,"    "The 
Future  Life,"   "The  Return  of 
Youth,"  "  June,"  "  The  Planting 
of  the  Ai3ple-Tree,"  "The  Song  of  the  Sower,"  and  "The  Flood  of 
Years "  ?     The  spirit  of  Liberty  voicing  the  best  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions of  humanity  on   earth   has  no  nobler   prophecy  than  in  such 


VIEW   OF   CEDARMERE. 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


21 


chants  as  "The  Antiquity  of  Freedom,"  "The  Winds,"  "Italy," 
"  Not  Yet,"  "  Our  Country's  Call,"  and  "  The  Death  of  Slavery."  In 
the  whole  range  of  his  writings  there  is  no  line  or  word  that  appeals 
to  an  unworthy  feeling — not  a  suggestion  that  is  impure.  Not  very 
much  blank  verse  has  been  produced  in  this  century  that  is  equal  to 
his. 

Milton  himself  has  written  considerable  that  is  not  so  good,  and 
not  a  great  quantity  that  is  better  when  measured  by  the  severest 
tests.  Between  the  two  men  in  their  poetical  cast  and  political  predi- 
lections an  interesting  parallel  might  be  drawn. 

It  can  not  be  doubted  that  the  character  of  the  man  has  much 
to  do  with  the  sterling  value  of  his  writings.  To  us  Bryant  always 
seemed  great  in  the  simplicity  of  his  manhood.  It  is  this  aspect  of 
him,  as  much  as  his  place  in  literature,  that  affords  such  an  instructive 
example  to  this  generation.  Certainly,  among  those  who  appreciate 
exalted  qualities  and  who  are  familiar  with  the  careers  of  our  public 


LIBRARY    AX    CEDARMERE. 


22         THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

men,  there  is  but  one  opinion  of  Bryant's  character.  His  reputation 
is  absolutely  untarnished.  But  his  virtue  was  not  a  negative  one.  He 
felt  the  pressure  of  powerful  parties,  walked  amid  the  very  whirl- 
winds of  political  controversy  and  strife,  and  never  sacrificed  a  prin- 
ciple nor  proved  unfaithful  to  his  convictions.  Testimony  from  a 
long  array  of  names  of  the  highest  distinction  in  the  republic  is 
unanimous  as  to  his  integrity,  his  courage,  his  devotion  to  his  country, 
his  sincere  and  unsullied  life.  What  Holmes  says  is  simply  the  con- 
densation of  the  tributes  that  his  contemporaries  have  uttered  : 

"  How  shall  we  thank  him  that,  in  evil  days. 
He  faltered  never — nor  for  blame,  nor  praise. 
Nor  hire,  nor  party,  shamed  his  earlier  lays  ? 
But  as  his  boyhood  was  of  manliest  hue. 
So  to  his  youth  his  manly  years  were  true. 
All  dyed  in  royal  purple,  through  and  through." 

In  a  similar  strain  of  reverent  gratitude  sings  Lowell : 

"  And  shall  we  praise  ?    God's  praise  was  his  before. 
And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down. 
Himself  our  bravest  crown  ! " 
1^ 
But  he  was  the  possessor  of  something  more  than  a  stem  morality. 
To  his  Roman  virtue  he  added  the  devout  and  affectionate  spirit  of  an 
humble  follower  of  Christ.     His  poetry  shows  his  serious,  reverent, 
religious  nature,  and  his  hymns  particularly  (only  a  few  of  which  are 
known  yet  to  the  public)  glow  with  Christian  trust  and  aspiration. 
But  only  those  who  knew  him  intimately  are  aware  of  the  depth  and 
sweetness  of  his  Christian  character,  which  seemed  continually  ripen- 
ing through  his  long  journey. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  one  in  whom  the  currents  of  life  ran 
with  the  sympathies  and  purposes  that  animated  him  would  serve 
kindly  in  all  his  relations.  The  demands  upon  his  time  were  mani- 
fold and  onerous,  and  yet  he  was  always  ready  to  deny  himself  for 
the  promotion  of  a  deserving  cause.     The  citizens  of  New  York  are 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  23 

familiar  with  his  various  services.  A  little  incident  illustrates  well 
his  deference  to  the  voice  of  duty,  even  when  none  could  criticise  a 
refusal  to  respond.  Going  to  church  with  his  family  one  tine  Sunday 
morning,  at  Cummington,  where  a  good  congregation  assembled,  no 
clergyman  appeared.  It  seemed  hardly  proper  that  the  people  who 
came  to  worship  should  separate  mthout  any  religious  service  what- 
ever, and  it  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Bryant  that  he  was  the  proper  one 
to  lead  their  devotions.  He  modestly  accepted  the  invitation,  went 
into  the  pulpit,  read  the  Scriptures  and  offered  the  Lord's  Prayer,  in 
which  the  congregation  joined. 

Little  need  be  said  in  e\ddence  of  his  intellectual  activity  ;  his  in- 
dustry kept  pace  with  his  longevity.  It  is  notable  that  some  of  his 
severest  work  was  done  in  his  old  age.  It  was  in  his  seventy  first 
year  that  he  began  the  translation  of  the  "  Iliad."  This  was  finished, 
December,  1869,  when  the  "  Odyssey"  was  immediately  taken  up  and 
completed,  December,  1871.  The  whole  translation  of  Homer  was 
accomplished,  at  such  intervals  as  he  could  command,  during  the 
space  of  six  years.  His  average  daily  work  was  forty  lines,  but  some- 
times, on  days  of  unusual  poetic  fervor,  eighty  lines  were  achieved. 
The  fire,  the  movement,  the  simplicity,  of  the  old  Greek  bard  are  pre- 
served in  pure,  idiomatic  English ;  and,  whatever  the  critics  may  finally 
conclude  as  to  the  merit  of  the  work,  we  unhesitatingly  give  it  the 
preference  over  all  other  efforts  to  reproduce  the  original  in  our  An- 
glo-Saxon. The  achievement  at  his  time  of  life  is  an  extraordinary 
one  in  the  history  of  literature,  and,  if  he  had  done  nothing  else  in 
these  late  days,  this  would  insure  a  brilliant  fame.  But  he  did  a 
great  deal  more.  Besides  giving  proper  attention  to  the  "Evening 
Post,"  revising  a  large  collection  of  choice  poetry,  and  doing  careful 
work  in  the  supervision  of  the  "  Popular  History  of  the  United 
States,"  he  constantly  pursued  his  literary  studies  and  produced 
original  poems  which  are  not  surpassed  by  any  in  his  prime.  "  The 
Flood  of  Years,"  written  in  his  eighty-second  year,  has  all  the  grace, 
the  strength,  the  statuesque  beauty,  the  sublime  movement,  that  make 
verse  immortal. 


24       THE  H0ME8  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

To  the  last  Mr.  Bryant's  memory  showed  no  signs  of  infirmity. 
He  could  repeat,  if  required,  the  greater  part  of  all  his  poems,  and 
his  familiarity  with  the  exact  language  of  authors  was  amazing.  The 
companion  of  his  walks  found  nothing  more  delightful  than  his  apt 
quotations,  his  pithy  and  instructive  observations  on  politics,  litera- 
ture, and  religion.  He  had  a  rich  fund  of  anecdote  illustrative  of 
persons  and  places,  but  he  was  entirely  free  from  egotism.  Something 
of  this  would  be  agreeable  to  those  who  are  interested  in  all  phases  of 
his  experience  and  life.  No  one  ever  detected  in  his  conversation  any 
jealousy  of  distinguished  names.  He  was  quick  to  recognize  and  ap- 
plaud merit.    There  was  nothing  in  his  manner  that  one  associates  with 


THE    HALL,    PRESENTED   TO   ROSLYN   BY    MR.    BRYANT. 


the  querulousness  of  old  age  ;  indeed,  his  manner  was  simplicity  itself. 
And  yet,  with  all  his  ease  and  artlessness,  his  presence  was  exceedingly 
impressive.  He  seemed,  no  doubt,  cold  and  reserved  to  strangers  ;  but 
there  was  a  rare  tenderness  under  his  austere  and  kingly  look,  which 
was  all  the  sweeter  from  the  strength  of  soul  that  kept  it. 

Mr.  Bryant's  support  of  the  various  utilities  that  promote  the 
well-being  of  the  masses,  such  as  improved  tenement-houses,  good 
drainage,  proper  water  supply  for  cities,  and  public  parks,  is  well 
known.     His  usual  good  judgment  in  benefactions  for  the  public  good 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


25 


is  seen  in  his  gifts  of  tlie  Cummington  Library,  Roslyn  Hall,  and 
three  or  foui'  miles  of  solid  road,  which  he  caused  to  be  built  at  his 


THE    PAKLOK    AT    CKDARMERE. 


own  expense  along  the  mountain-sides  of  his  native  to\Yn.  During 
the  last  decade  of  his  life,  he  came  into  closer  contact  with  his  fel- 
low-men than  formerly.  His  visits  to  the  public  schools  and  colleges 
attested  his  personal  interest  in  the  work  of  education. 

A  full  account  of  Mr.  Bryant's  relations  with  the  institutions  of 
literature  and  art  in  New  York  would  make  an  article  by  itself.  He 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Century  Club,  and  was  its  president  at 
the  time  of  his  death.  With  the  Historical  Society  he  was  long  iden- 
tified. He  assisted  in  the  establishment  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 
The  Academy  of  Design  always  reckoned  him  among  its  influential 
friends,  and,  when  its  new  building  was  finished,  he  delivered  the 
address  at  its  inauguration.     On  occasions  when  the  culture  of  the 


26        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

metropolis  was  to  be  represented,  lie  was  selected  by  general  consent 
as  its  appropriate  oracle.  He  was  chosen  to  pronounce  the  memorial 
tributes  to  Cole,  Cooper,  Irving,  Verplanck,  and  Halleck,  when  these 
eminent  Americans  passed  away.  When,  as  a  step  preparatory  to  his 
nomination  for  President,  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  present  Mr. 
Lincoln  under  impressive  auspices  in  New  York,  Mr.  Bryant  was 
asked  to  preside  at  the  meeting  as  its  most  illustrious  citizen.  At 
the  unveiling  of  the  statues  of  Scott,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe,  he 
was  selected  to  pronounce  the  words  for  the  occasions.  The  Legisla- 
ture of  the  State  of  New  York  never  received  an  American  with  the 
honors  which  a  few  years  ago  it  gave  to  him.  The  Century  Club 
celebrated  his  seventieth  birthday  by  a  festival,  memorable,  not  only 
in  the  annals  of  the  society,  but  in  the  extraordinaiy  character  of 
those  who  participated  in  it. 

A  prominent  feature  of  the  occasion  was  the  presentation  to  Mr. 
Bryant  of  a  portfolio  of  some  forty  studies  by  the  artist  members  of 
the  club,  among  whom  were  Huntington,  Church,  Durand,  Gignoux, 
Launt  Thompson,  Kensett,  Rogers,  McEntee,  Giiford,  Eastman  John- 
son, and  Bierstadt.  Bancroft,  the  historian,  delivered  the  congratula- 
tory address ;  Emerson,  Dr.  Osgood,  R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  and  Evarts  joined 
in  salutations  in  terms  of  glowing  portraiture.  Poetical  tiibutes  came 
from  Lowell,  Whittier,  Holmes,  Tuckerman,  Bayard  Taylor,  Stoddard, 
Boker,  and  others,  in  strains  of  lofty  admiration.  Longfellow,  Pier- 
pont,  Halleck,  Willis,  and  Verplanck  sent  letters  of  friendly  greeting. 

In  1866  a  great  sorrow  fell  upon  the  poet.  After  a  beautiful 
companionship  of  forty-five  years,  Mrs.  Biyant  was  removed  from  his 
side.  She  had  that  genuine  feminine  sympathy,  and  that  intelligence, 
unselfishness,  and  unfailing  sweetness  of  disposition,  which  peculiarly 
fitted  her  for  her  position  as  the  wife  of  such  a  man.  Her  piety  was 
of  that  deep,  even,  undemonstrative  kind  that  casts  a  cheerful  luster 
over  life  and  home,  that  is  such  a  sure  resource  in  the  day  of  trial,  and 
whose  influence  is  so  sacred  and  persuasive.  One  of  Mr.  Biyant's 
most  exquisite  poems,  "  The  Future  Life,"  was  inspired  by  her.  Mr.. 
Rogers,  the  poet,  used  to  say  that  he  could  never  read  that  poem 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  27 

without  tears.  After  her  long  and  dangerous  illness  in  Italy,  in  1858, 
Mrs.  Bryant's  convalescence  was  welcomed  by  another  admirable  com- 
position, "  The  Life  that  Is  "  : 

*'  Twice  wert  thou  given  me  ;  once  in  thy  fair  prime, 
Fresh  from  the  fields  of  youth,  when  first  we  met. 
And  all  the  blossoms  of  that  hopeful  time 

Clustered  and  glowed  where'er  thy  steps  were  set. 

"  And  now,  in  thy  ripe  autumn,  once  again 

Given  back  to  fervent  prayers  and  yearnings  strong, 
From  the  drear  realm  of  sickness  and  of  pain 

When  we  had  watched,  and  feared,  and  trembled  long." 

But  this  renewed  companionship  was  not  very  long  to  be  pro- 
tracted. The  separation  was  grievous,  but  he  gave  way  to  no  childish 
sorrow.  More  intense  labor  than  ever  was  the  chief  sign  of  the  acute- 
ness  of  his  sufferings.  Life  afterward  was  lived  more  with  things 
unseen.  His  accomplished  daughter,  Julia,  after  her  mother's  death, 
took  charge  of  the  household. 

Mr.  Bryant's  vigorous  longevity  has  but  few  parallels  among  distin- 
guished intellectual  men.  It  was  due  partly  to  an  inherited  endurance 
of  constitution,  and  partly  to  the  most  rigid  observance  of  hygienic 
rules.  His  grandfather,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  could  mount  a  horse 
with  the  agility  of  a  young  man,  and  is  said  to  have  ridden  out  to 
visit  patients  only  two  weeks  before  his  death.  His  father,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two,  fell  a  prey  to  consumption,  induced,  no  doubt,  by 
exposure  and  overwork  as  a  physician  in  a  section  of  country  that 
made  the  practice  of  his  profession  so  severe  a  tax  upon  all  his 
energies.  A  tendency  to  pulmonary  disease,  however,  was  peculiar  to 
the  family,  and  a  gifted  sister  of  the  poet  fell  a  victim  to  it  at  an  early 
age.  In  his  early  manhood,  Mr.  Bryant  himself  showed  symptoms  of 
the  malady  sufficiently  marked  to  cause  considerable  solicitude  among 
his  friends,  few  of  whom  thought  that  his  life  would  be  a  long  one. 
Any  little  recklessness  of  living  would  probably  have  resulted  fatally 
fifty  years  ago,  while  by  simple  inconsiderateness  he  would,  doubtless, 


28       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

have  passed  away  before  middle  life.  But,  by  the  strictest  temper- 
ance, regular  exercise,  and  the  most  careful  observance  of  the  laws  of 
health,  under  the  Divine  blessing,  he  attained  his  great  age  of  eighty- 
four,  with  a  vigor  of  body  and  mind  excellently  preserved.  It  is 
remarkable  for  a  person  of  his  organization  that,  since   the  age  of 


VIEW   FROM   THE   I'RONT   DOOK,    CEDARMERE. 


fifteen,  he  never  suffered  from  headache.  He  did  his  intellectual 
tasks  in  the  morning,  and  never  wrote  or  studied  at  night.  It  was  his 
custom  to  retire,  ordinarily,  soon  after  nine  o'clock,  and  he  rose  usually 


WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  29 

at  five.  Before  breakfast,  lie  took  regularly  kis  gymnastic  exercise 
with  tlie  dumb-bells  and  club.  He  loved  the  bath.  His  food  was 
simple  and  nutritious.  He  ate  sparingly  of  flesh  and  fish,  while  his 
diet  was  largely  of  oatmeal,  hominy,  milk,  and  fruits  in  their  season,  of 
which  he  was  fond.  He  used  neither  tea  nor  coffee,  and  was  a 
stranger  to  tobacco.  He  took  his  wine  in  the  uncrushed  grape,  which 
fruit,  with  many  other  varieties,  he  successfully  cultivated.  His  pas- 
sion for  trees  and  flowers  is  w^ell  known,  and  his  home  on  Long  Isl- 
and gives  abundant  evidence  of  his  taste  in  this  particular.  Mr.  Bry- 
ant was  fortunate,  in  having  for  the  overseers  of  his  property  in  the 
country  men  of  intelligence  and  probity.  Mr.  Dawes,  a  brother  of 
the  senator  of  that  name  from  Massachusetts,  had  charge  of  the  Cum- 
mington  farm,  and  Mr.  George  B.  Cline  superintended  the  place  at 
Roslyn  for  many  years  with  approved  taste  and  conscientious  devo- 
tion. 

It  is  granted  to  but  few  to  stand,  as  Bryant  did,  on  the  summit  of 
a  long  life  made  so  beautiful  by  virtue  and  so  endeared  to  men  byi 
noble  service  and  exalted  genius.  He  is  a  grand  figure  in  the  historj 
of-  our  country.  The  msest  and  best  of  the  land  revere  and  honoi' 
him.  He  illustrates  the  most  admirable  type  of  manhood,  and  is  ar. 
example,  to  this  generation  and  to  those  who  will  follow,  of  a  lif^ 
whose  rare  gifts  have  all  been  consecrated  to  the  highest  uses/^oi 
humanity.  / 

Mr.  Bryant's  vitality  was  remarkable  in  so  old  a  man.  Unhap- 
pily, however,  he  was  vain  of  his  strength,  and  sometimes  overtaxed 
it.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  he  might,  not  unnaturally,  have  been  alive 
to-day.  On  the  afternoon  of  Wednesday,  May  29,  1878  (a  day  of 
mid-summer  heat),  a  bust  of  Mazzini  was  unveiled  in  Central  Park, 
and  Mr.  Biyant  delivered  an  address.  Immediately  afterward  he 
crossed  the  gi-een  to  see  the  Halleck  statue.  Both  in  walking  and  in 
speaking  he  was  unnecessarily  exposed,  and  the  result  was  an  attack 
of  vertigo,  which  caused  a  heavy  fall.  For  several  days  his  recovery 
was  deemed  probable ;  but  early  on  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  the 
12th  of  June,  his  spirit  passed  away.    Two  days  later,  a  distinguished 


30        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

company  gathered  to  hear  a  funeral  oration  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows ; 
and  then,  when  the  last  services  of  the  church  had  been  performed, 
children  strewed  flowers  on  a  new-made  grave  at  Roslyn — a  new-made 
grave  by  the  side  of  one  which  had  been  filled  for  several  years. 
Death,  it  has  been  remai'ked,  came  to  the  front  in  the  season  which  he 
had  himself  described  as  best  befitting  scenes  of  death  and  burial : 

**  'Twero  pleasant  that  in  leafy  Juno, 
When  brooks  send  up  a  cheerful  tune, 

And  groves  a  joyful  sound. 
The  sexton's  hand,  my  grave  to  make. 
The  rich,  green  mountain  turf  should  break." 


/C 


'y^n^ 


'^^^ 


?     /S/^. 


THE    OLD    MANSE. 


RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON. 

It  was  said  by  a  friend  who  stood  by  Thoreau's  grave,  before 
Hawthorne  had  been  buried  near  him  on  the  hill-side  where  he  sleeps 
in  Concord,  "  This  village  is  his  monument,  covered  with  suitable  in- 
scriptions by  himself."  In  future  years — when  the  pilgrim  shall  stand 
on  the  same  pine-covered  hill-top,  where,  a  little  higher  up,  as  befits 
his  genius,  will  be  seen  the  grave  of  Emerson — it  can  be  said  with 
even  greater  truth,  that  Concord  itself  is  the  monument  of  him  who 

wrote, 

"  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood," 


and  that  other  song,  unfathomed  in  the  depth  of  its  sadness,  whose 
closing  strain  is, 

"  The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
The  Master's  requiem." 


32        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

For  Concord  is  not  only  inscribed  in  all  its  tranquil  scenery — its 
woods  and  fields  and  waters — with  memories  of  Emerson,  the  poet, 
but  is  also  a  family  monument  to  bis  ancestors,  the  Bulkeleys  and 
Emersons  and  Blisses ;  pious  ministers  wbo  founded  it,  prayed  for  it, 
and  preached  in  it,  helped  to  rescue  it  from  Indian  ambush  and  Eng- 
lish invasion,  and  then  laid  their  bones  there  to  become  part  of  its 
soil,  and  to  dignify  the  plain  earth  which  had  nourished  them.  The 
history  of  the  town  is  indeed  that  of  Emerson  and  his  forefathers; 
and  it  is  better  known  by  his  fame  than  through  any  other  distinction 
it  may  now  enjoy.  It  is  here  that  the  pilgrim  shall  say  as  the  Persian 
disciple  said  of  his  master,  "  The  eagle  of  the  immaterial  soul  of  Saadi 
hath  shaken  from  his  plumage  the  dust  of  the  body." 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  is  the  eighth  in  descent  from  the  Rev. 
Peter  Bulkeley,  rector  of  Odell  or  Woodhill,  in  English  Bedford- 
shire, where  the  Ouse,  they  say,  pours  a  winding  flood  through  green 
meadows,  much  as  the  Musketaquid  now  does  in  his  American  colony. 
This  Puritan  minister,  unwilling  to  obey  the  bishops  of  Charles  Stuart, 
emigrated  to  Massachusetts,  in  1634,  with  several  of  his  English  flock, 
and,  in  company  with  Major  Simon  Willard,  a  Kentish  man,  planted 
the  towruof  Concord  in  September,  1635.  He  was  the  first  minister 
of  the  church  which  he  gathered  there,  and,  at  his  death  in  1659, 
transmitted  his  sacred  ofiice  to  his  son,  Rev.  Edward  Bulkeley,  whose 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  born  in  Concord  in  1638,  married  Rev.  Joseph 
Emerson  in  1665,  and  became  the  mother  of  a  long  line  of  ministerial 
Emersons.  Her  son,  Edward  Emerson,  bom  in  Concord  in  1670,  mar- 
ried Rebecca  Waldo,  of  Chelmsford,  in  1697,  from  whom  the  present 
Mr.  Emerson  derives  both  his  descent  and  his  middle  name,  by  which 
he  has  commonly  been  called.  The  Emersons  and  Waldos,  unlike  the 
Bulkeleys,  first  settled  in  Ipswich,  and  were  not  originally  clergymen. 
Thomas  Emerson,  the  first  American  ancestor  of  the  poet,  is  supposed 
to  be  descended  from  the  Emersons  of  Durham,  in  England,  and  per- 
haps from  that  Ralph  Emerson  in  the  county  palatine  of  Durham 
who,  in  1535,  received  from  Henry  VIII  a  grant  of  the  heraldic  arms 
which  the  family  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  have  inherited — three 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  33 

lions  passant,  with  a  demi-lion  holding  a  battle-axe  for  crest.*  The 
Waldos  claim  descent  from  Peter  Waldo,  a  leading  man  among  those 
early  Protestants  known  as  Waldenses ;  their  first  American  ancestor 
was  Cornelius,  of  Ipswich  and  Chelmsford,  the  father  of  Rebecca 
Emerson.  These  Waldos  had  been  merchants  in  London.  The 
Bulkeleys  were  of  gentle  blood,  and  related  to  the  family  of  Oliver 
St.  John,  the  Parliamentary  leader  and  friend  of  Cromwell,  whom 
Rev.  Peter  Bulkeley  calls  his  nephew. 

In  New  England,  since  Thomas  Emerson's  death,  in  1666,  his 
descendants  have  taken  to  the  Christian  ministry  as  remarkably  as  the 
Cottons  or  the  Mathers.  Mr.  Emerson,  of  Concord,  his  father,  grand- 
father, and  great-grandfather,  of  that  name,  were  all  ministers,  and  he 
has  a  clerical  ancestor  in  every  generation,  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
as  far  back  as  Fox's  "  Book  of  Martyrs,'.'  to  which  one  of  those  ances- 
tors wrote  a  supplement.  Mr.  Emerson  himself  was  bom  in  Boston, 
May  25,  1803 ;  his  father,  Rev.  William  Emerson,  being  at  that  time 
and  until  his  death,  in  1811,  minister  of  the  First  Church  congrega- 
tion, which  John  Cotton  had  gathered  in  1630.  This  church  in  1803 
assembled  in  the  Old  Brick  Meeting-house  on  Washington  Street, 
close  by  the  Old  State-house,  but  soon  removed  to  a  site  near  the 
parsonage  house,  at  the  corner  of  Summer  and  Chauncy  Streets,  in 
which  Mr.  Emerson  was  bom.  This  house  has  been  taken  down,  and 
so  has  the  new  parsonage  house  on  the  same  estate,  in  which  Mr. 
Emerson  spent  his  childhood.  His  father.  Rev.  William  Emerson,  of 
Boston,  was  bom  at  Concord,  in  the  parsonage  house  of  his  father. 
Rev.  William  Emerson,  of  Concord,  famous  as  the  Old  Manse,  since 
Hawthorne  lived  and  wrote  under  its  gambrel  roof.  It  was  then,  a 
few  years  before  the  Revolution,  a  new  and  fine  house,  built  for  the 
young  minister  of  Concord  and  his  bride.  Miss  Phebe  Bliss,  the  daugh- 
ter of  his  predecessor  in  the  parish.  Rev.  Daniel  Bliss.     The  sketches 


*  This  escutcheon  was  carved  on  the  tombstone  of  Nattaniel  Emerson  (brother  of  Rev. 
Joseph  Emerson)  at  Ipswich,  Massachusetts,  where  he  died  in  1712,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three. 
In  1709,  Richard  Dale,  a  London  herald,  certified  this  as  the  correct  escutcheon,  and  it  has 
since  been  used  by  some  branches  of  the  Emerson  family. 
5 


34       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

given  with  this  paper  of  its  exterior  and  interior  represent  it  as  little 
different  from  what  it  was  in  1775,  when  Mr.  Emerson's  grandfather 


THE   EMERSON    HOUSE. 


went  forth  from  its  front  door  early  on  the  morning  of  Concord  fight, 
to  join  the  farmers  at  their  muster  on  his  meeting-house  green.  It 
was  in  the  same  condition  sixty  years  later  when  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son went  to  live  in  it,  as  he  had  done  at  intervals  before. 

About  IT 80,  the  widow  of  Rev.  William  Emerson,  of  Concord, 
married  his  successor  in  the  parish.  Dr.  Ripley,  who  thus  became  the 
guardian  of  young  William  Emerson  and  his  sisters.  When,  some 
thirty  years  after.  Rev.  William  Emerson,  of  Boston,  died,  leaving  six 
or  seven  young  children,  of  whom  Ralph  Waldo  was  the  third  in  age. 
Dr.  Ripley's  parsonage  at  Concord  became  a  second  home  to  them— 
their  own  home  continuing  in  Boston  and  Cambridge  until  1834, 
when,  upon  his  return  from  England,  Mr.  R.  W.  Emerson  took  up  his 
abode  permanently  in  Concord.     For  a  year  or  so  he  lived  at  the  Old 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  35 

Manse  with  his  gi'andfather,  Dr.  Ripley,  and  there  his  first  book, 
"Nature,"  was  chiefly  written.  In  the  latter  part  of  1835,  after  his 
mari'iage  mth  Miss  Lidian  Jackson,  of  Pljonouth,  he  took  possession 
of  his  own  home  on  the  Lexington  road,  east  of  the  village,  not  far 
from  the  Walden  woods,  and  has  lived  there  ever  since.  The  house 
was  partially  destroyed  by  fire  a  few  years  ago,  but  was  rebuilt  in  its 
former  shape  and  aspect.  It  stands  among  trees,  with  a  pine  gi'ove 
across  the  street  in  front,  and  a  small  orchard  and  garden  reaching 
to  a  brook  in  the  rear.  On  the  southeast  side,  from  which  the 
preceding  sketch  is  taken,  it  looks  toward  another  orchard,  on  the 
edge  of  which  formerly  stood  the  picturesque  summer-house  built 
for  Mr.  Emerson  in  1847-48  by  his  friend  Mr.  Bronson  Alcott, 
but  now  for  some  years  decayed  and  removed.  The  house  itself 
is  of  wood — a  modest,  home-like,  comfortable  residence,  with  small 
outlook,  narrow  grounds,  and  at  some  distance  from  Walden  pond 
and  the  river — the  two  features  of  Concord  scenery  best  known 
to  the  world,  because  most  fully  described  by  Thoreau  and  Haw- 
thorne. 

Mr.  Emerson  had  dwelt  in  this  home  for  seven  years  when  Haw- 
thorne, immediately  upon  his  marriage  ^\^th  Miss  Sophia  Peabody  in 
1842,  went  to  live  in  the  Old  Manse,  of  which  he  has  given  so  charm- 
ing a  description.  The  general  features  of  the  landscape  have  also 
been  described  by  him,  as  well  as  by  Thoreau,  by  Ellery  Channing, 
the  poet,  by  Bronson  Alcott,  and  by  Emerson  himself.  Hawthorne 
said  in  1843  :  "  The  scenery  of  Concord  has  no  very  marked  charac- 
teristics, but  a  great  deal  of  quiet  beauty,  in  keeping  with  the  river. 
There  are  broad  and  peaceful  meadows,  which,  I  think,  are  among  the 
most  satisfying  objects  in  natural  scenery.  The  heart  reposes  on  them 
with  a  feeling  that  few  things  else  can  give,  because  almost  all  other 
objects  are  abrupt  and  clearly  defined  ;  but  a  meadow  stretches  out 
like  a  small  infinity,  yet  with  a  secure  homeliness  which  we  do  not 
find  either  in  an  expanse  of  water  or  of  air.  The  hills  which  border 
these  meadows  are  wide  swells  of  land,  or  long  and  gradual  ridges, 
some  of  them  densely  covered  with  wood.     The  white  village  appears 


36 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


to  be  embosomed  among  wooded  hills.     Tlie  river  is  one  of  the  love- 
liest features  in  a  scene  of  great  rural  beauty." 

The  sketch,  "  Concord  from  Lee's  Hill,"  is  taken  from  one  of  these 
hills,  and  gives  quite  as  much  distinctness  to  the  river  and  its  meadows 
as  to  the  village  itself,  beyond  which,  as  this  picture  is  drawn,  lie  the 
hill-side  grave  of  Hawthorne  and  the  houses  of  Emerson  and  Alcott. 


CONCORD  FROM  LEE's  HILL. 


From  the  hill  Nahshawtuc,  on  which  the  artist  sat  to  sketch  this 
view  (and  where  the  Indians  used  to  encamp,  between  the  two  rivers, 
Assabet  and  Musketaquid,  which  flow  under  its  north  and  south  sides 
to  form  the  Concord),  one  may  see  in  the  spring  freshets  that  prospect 
which  Thoreau  described : 


"  Our  village  shows  a  rural  Venice, 
Its  broad  lagoons  where  yonder  fen  is  ; 
As  lovely  as  the  Bay  of  Naples 
Yon  placid  cove  amid  the  maples  ; 
And  in  my  neighbor's  field  of  corn 
I  recognize  the  Golden  Horn." 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  37 

It  was  proposed  by  Thoreau  that  Concord  should  adopt  for  its 
coat-of-arms  "a  field  verdant,  with  the  river  circling  nine  times 
round " ;  and  he  compared  the  slow  motion  of  the  stream  to  "  the 
moccasined  tread  of  an  Indian  warrior."  Channing — who,  since  he 
came  to  reside  in  Concord,  in  1841,  has  rambled  over  every  foot  of  its 
ground  with  Thoreau,  with  Hawthorne,  or  with  Emerson,  and  is  one 
of  the  few  persons  who,  as  Thoreau  thought,  "  understood  the  art  of 
walking,  that  is,  of  taking  walks,;  who  had  a  genius,  so  to  speak,  for 
sauntering  " — Channing  sings  of  these 

"  Peaceful  walks 
O'er  the  low  valleys,  seamed  with  long-past  thrift, 
And  crags  that  beetle  o'er  the  base  of  woods 
By  rock  and  hill,  low  stream,  and  surly  pitch 
Of  never-opening  oaks." 

But  Emerson  himself,  the  first  poet  of  Concord,  if  not  of  America, 
has  drawn  the  landscape  so  familiar  to  him  with  the  most  truthful 
touches : 

"  Because  I  was  content  with  these  poor  fields, 
Low,  open  meads,  slender  and  sluggish  streams, 
And  found  a  home  in  haunts  which  others  scorned, 
The  partial  wood-gods  overpaid  my  love. 
And  granted  me  the  freedom  of  their  state. 
For  me  in  showers,  in  sweeping  showers,  the  spring 
Visits  the  valley  ; — break  away  the  clouds, — 
I  bathe  in  the  morn's  soft  and  silvered  air. 
And  loiter  willing  by  yon  loitering  stream  ; 
Beneath  low  hills,  in  the  broad  interval 
Through  which  at  will  our  Indian  rivulet 
Winds,  piindful  yet  of  sannup  and  of  squaw. 
Whose  pipe  and  arrow  oft  the  plow  unburies. 
Sparrows  far  off,  and  nearer,  April's  bird, 
Blue-coated,  flying  before  from  tree  to  tree. 
Courageous,  sing  a  delicate  overture 
To  lead  the  tardy  concert  of  the  year. 
Onward  and  nearer  rides  the  sun  of  May, 


38        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS, 

And  wide  around  the  marriage  of  the  plants 
Is  sweetly  solemnized.     Then  flows  amain 
The  surge  of  summer's  beauty  ;  dell  and  crag 
Hollow  and  lake,  hill-side  and  pine  arcade. 
Are  touched  with  genius.     Yonder  ragged  cliff 
Has  thousand  faces  in  a  thousand  hours." 

Such  is  the  picture  presented  to  serene  and  hopeful  eyes ;  but 
there  is  a  different  landscape,  veiled  with  a  sadder  hue,  which  the 
same  eyes  have  sometimes  seen. 

"  In  the  long,  sunny  afternoon. 
The  plain  Avas  full  of  ghosts  ; 
I  wandered  up,  I  wandered  down. 
Beset  by  pensive  hosts. 

*'  The  winding  Concord  gleamed  below. 
Pouring  as  wide  a  flood 
As  when  my  brothers,  long  ago. 
Came  with  me  to  the  wood. 

"  But  they  are  gone,  the  holy  ones. 
Who  trod  with  me  this  lovely  vale  ; 
The  strong,  star-bright  companions 
Are  silent,  low,  and  pale. 

*'  I  touch  this  flower  of  silken  leaf 
Which  once  our  childhood  knew  ; 
Its  soft  leaves  wound  me  with  a  grief 
Whose  balsam  never  grew." 

Those  whom  Emerson  commemorates  in  these  lines  were  his  earli- 
est companions,  his  brothers  Edward  and  Charles,  with  whom  he 
rambled  among  the  Concord  woods  and  streams  in  his  boyhood  and 
youth,  from  1816  to  1836,  when  his  youngest  brother  Charles  died. 
A  few  years  later — perhaps  in  1838 — ^his  friend  Alcott  began  to  walk 
the  hill-tops  and  wood-paths  with  him;  in  1839  he  became  intimate 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON. 


39 


with  his  young  townsman,  Henry  Thoreau,  then  just  setting  forth 
with  his  brother  John  to  explore  the  rivers  Concord  and  Merrimac ; 
and  in  1841  Ellery  Channing,  returning  eastward  from  the  prairies  of 
Illinois  and  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  made  his  home  in  a  cottage  not 
far  from  Mr.  Emerson's  house.  Hawthorne,  as  before  mentioned,  came 
first  in  1842  ;  he  left  Concord  for  Salem  in  1846,  but  returned  thither 
twice,  in  1852,  and,  finally,  in 
1860,  when  he  came  back  from 
England.  Between  1836  and 
1846  Margaret  Fuller  was  a  fre- 
quent visitor  in  Concord,  and  a 
companion  of  Mr.  Emerson  and 
his  friends.  Hawthorne's  note- 
book records  that  in  August, 
1842,  while  returning  through 
the  woods  from  Mr.  Emerson's 
house  to  the  Old  Manse,  he  en- 
countered Margaret  reading  un- 
der a  tree  in  "  Sleepy  Hollow  " 
— the  little  park  that  has  since 
become  a  cemetery,  in  which 
Hawthorne  himself  is  buried. 
As  they  sat  talking  on  the  hill- 
side, not  far  from  his  future 
grave,  "  we  heard,"  he  says, 
"footsteps  on  the  high  bank 
above  us,  and,  while  the  person 
was  still  hidden  among  the  trees, 
he  called  to  Margaret.     Then  he 

emerged  from  his  green  shade,  and,  behold !  it  was  Mr.  Emerson, 
who  said  'there  were  Muses  in  the  woods  to-day,  and  whispers 
to  be  heard  in  the  breezes.'  It  being  now  nearly  six  o'clock,  we 
separated— Mr.  Emerson  and  Margaret  toward  his  home,  and  I  toward 


I 


THE    OLD    NORTH    BRIDGE    REBUILT. 


mme. 


« 


40         THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

This  anecdote  may  serve  to  call  attention  to  a  habit  of  Emerson, 
in  whicli  he  agrees  with  Wordsworth.  When  a  traveler  asked  to  see 
the  old  poet's  study,  his  servant  answered:  "Here  is  Mr.  Words- 
worth's library^  but  his  study  is  out-of-doors."  It  was  for  many  years 
Mr.  Emerson's  custom  to  pass  his  mornings  in  his  library,  and  his 
afternoons  in  the  open  air,  walking  alone  or  with  a  friend  across  the 
pastures  and  through  the  woods  which  encircle  the  village  on  all  sides. 
Behind  the  first  range  of  these  woods  to  the  southward  lies  the  fair 
lake  called  Walden,  along  whose  shores  Mr.  Emerson  owns  some  acres 
of  woodland,  so  that  he  may  look  upon  Walden  as  his  own  domain. 
His  favorite  walk  has  been  to  -these  woods  and  around  this  pond ;  and 
on  the  farther  shore,  o]3posite  the  cove  where  Thoreau  built  his  cabin 
in  1845,  Mr.  Emerson  once  purposed  to  build  a  lodge  or  summer- 
house,  for  study  and  for  the  lovely  prospect.  The  sketch  of  Walden 
Pond,  which  we  give,  was  drawn  from  a  point  in  the  Emerson  wood- 
lot,  looking  southeast  across  the  water  to  the  Emerson  wood-lot  on  the 
other  side,  where  the  lodge,  had  it  been  built,  was  to  stand.  For  some 
years,  just  before  Thoreau's  death,  in  1862,  Mr.  Emerson  kept  his  boat 
in  the  cove  beside  which  his  friend's  cabin  had  stood,  and  from  this 
they  now  and  then  rowed  forth  together. 

"  Here  sometimes  gliding  in  his  peaceful  skiff 
Climene  sails,  heir  of  the  world,  and  notes 
(In  his  perception  that  no  thing  escapes) 
Each  varying  pulse  along  Life's  arteries, 
Both  what  she  half  resolves,  and  half  effects. 
As  well  as  her  whole  purpose.     To  his  eye. 
The  stars  of  many  a  midnight  heaven  have  beamed 
Tokens  of  love,  types  of  the  soul.     He  saw 
In  those  far-moving  barks  on  Heaven's  sea, 
Eadiates  of  force  ;  and  while  he  moved  from  man 
Lost  on  the  eternal  billow,  still  his  heart 
Beat  with  some  natural  fondness  for  his  race. " 

As  Mr.  Emerson  was  one  day  walking  with  a  young  friend  along 
the  railroad  track  that  dikes  Walden  on  the  southwest,  he  threw  a 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  41 

stone  into  the  green  water  and  repeated  his  o^vn  lines,  which  had  not 
then  been  printed : 

"  He  smote  the  lake  to  please  his  eye 
With  the  beryl  beam  of  the  broken  wave  ; 
He  flung  in  pebbles,  well  to  hear 
The  moment's  music  which  they  gave." 

In  one  of  his  later  poems,  called  "  My  Garden,"  he  thus  speaks  of 
Walden  and  its  wooded  banks : 

*'  My  garden  is  a  forest  ledge 
Which  older  forests  bound  ; 
The  banks  slope  down  to  the  blue  lake  edge. 
Then  plunge  to  depths  profound. 

*'  Waters  that  wash  my  garden  side 
Play  not  in  Nature's  lawful  web. 
They  heed  not  moon  or  solar  tide — 
Five  years  elapse  from  flood  to  ebb." 

The  allusion  here  is  to  the  mysterious  rise  and  fall  of  the  water  in 
Walden,  quite  regardless  of  rain  or  drought,  being  sometimes  at  its 
highest  in  a  dry  summer,  and  at  its  lowest  when  all  other  streams  and 
ponds  are  full.  It  seems  to  be  fed  by  secret  springs,  and  to  have  a 
hidden  outlet. 

When,  at  one  period  in  his  life,  it  became  necessary  for  Mr.  Emer- 
son to  decide  in  what  town  or  city  he  would  fix  his  abode,  he  said,  "  I 
am  by  nature  a  poet,  and,  therefore,  must  live  in  the  country."  His 
choice  of  Concord  for  a  home  was  simple  and  natural ;  it  had  been  the 
home  of  his  ancestors,  the  paradise  of  his  childhood,  and  no  other 
scenery  could  have  been  more  in  harmony  with  his  genius.  He  found 
there  the  familial'  beauty  of  nature  and  the  freedom  from  social  forms 
which  the  idealist  needs ;  while  his  native  city  was  stiU  so  near  that 
he  could  resort  to  it  or  welcome  his  friends  from  it  as  often  as  his  way 
of  life  required.     For  a  few  years  before  establishing  himself  in  Con- 

6 


42        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

cord,  in  1834,  he  had  been  the  minister  of  a  parish  in  Boston,  and  for 
some  years  after  his  retirement  there  he  continued  to  preach  occasion- 
ally in  pulpits  not  far  from  home.  Gradually  his  pulpit  became  the 
lecture  platform,  from  which,  in  Boston  and  in  a  hundred  other  cities 
and  villages,  he  read  those  essays  that,  since  1840,  have  appeared  in 
his  books.  His  poems  first  began  to  be  printed  in  the  "  Dial,"  a  quar- 
terly review  established  by  him  and  his  friends  in  1840,  and  continu- 
ing four  years.  The  first  volume  of  poems  was  published  in  1847  ; 
the  second  in  1867  ;  a  third,  containing  the  most,  but  not  all  of  these 
two  volumes,  came  out  in  1876,  with  a  few  new  poems,  the  most 
important  of  which  was  his  "  Boston,"  first  read  at  Faneuil  Hall  in 
December,  1873,  when  the  poet  had  more  than  completed  his  three- 
score years  and  ten.  It  had  been  written  about  ten  years  earlier,  how- 
ever, as  part  of  a  longer  poem  not  yet  published.  Several  of  his  poems 
have  long  remained  unpublished,  among  them  one  read  in  Cambridge 
more  than  forty  years  ago.  He  began  to  write  verses  very  early,  and, 
in  the  biography  of  his  friend,  Mrs.  Samuel  Ripley,  we  find  the  first 
of  his  lines  that  were  ever  printed.  They  are  a  translation  made  in 
May,  1814,  when  he  was  just  eleven  years  old,  from  the  fifth  eclogue 
of  Virgil.     The  passage  translated  begins : 

"  Sed  tu  desine  plura  puer  ;  successimus  antro. 
Extinctum  NympJice  crudeli  funere  DapJinin 
Flebant :  vos  coruli  testes,  et  flumina  NympMsP 

This  is  Waldo  Emerson's  version  of  it,  if,  as  I  suppose,  he  trans- 
lated it,  and  did  not  copy  from  some  elder  translator : 

"  Turn  now,  0  youth  !  from  your  long  speech  away  ; 
The  bower  we've  reached  recluse  from  sunny  ray. 
The  Nymphs  with  pomp  have  mourned  for  Daphnis  dead  ; 
The  hazels  witnessed  and  the  rivers  fled. 
The  wretched  mother  clasped  her  lifeless  child, 
And  gods  and  stars  invoked  with  accents  wild. 
Daphnis  !     The  cows  are  not  now  led  to  streams 
Where  the  bright  sun  upon  the  water  gleams, 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  43 

Neither  do  herds  the  cooling  river  drink, 

Nor  crop  the  grass  upon  the  verdant  brink. 

O  Daphnis  !     Both  the  mountains  and  the  woods, 

The  Punic  lions  and  the  raging  floods 

All  mourn  for  thee — for  thee  who  first  did  hold 

In  chariot  reins  the  spotted  tiger  bold  ! " 

There  are  ten  more  lines,  but  these  are  enougli  to  show  the 
smoothness  of  the  verse  and  the  freedom  of  the  translation.  It  was 
written  in  continuation  of  a  version  made  by  Mrs.  Ripley  herself 
(then  Miss  Sarah  Bradford),  whose  letter  accompanying  her  own 
verses  ^  furnishes  an  agreeable  picture  of  the  young  poet's  occupations 
at  the  Boston  Latin  School.  Miss  Bradford,  then  not  quite  twenty- 
one  years  old,  had  read  by  herself  and  for  her  own  delight  not  only 
Virgil  and  Horace  and  Juvenal  in  Latin,  but  Homer,  Theocritus, 
Euripides,  and  Sophocles  in  Greek,  and  Tasso  in  Italian.  She  writes 
thus  to  her  friend's  nephew,  who  afterward  became  her  own  nephew 
by  marriage : 

"  My  dear  Young  Friend  :   You  love  to  trifle  in  rhyme  a  little  now  and 
then  ;  why  will  you  not  continue  this  versification  of  the  fifth  Bucolic  ?    You  will 


WALDEN    POND. 


44        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

answer  two  ends,  or,  as  the  old  proverb  goes,  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone — im- 
prove in  your  Latin,  as  well  as  indulge  a  taste  for  poetry.  Why  can't  you  write 
me  a  letter  in  Latin  ?  But  Greek  is  your  favorite  language  ;  Epistola  in  lingua 
GrcBca  would  be  still  better.  All  the  honor  will  be  on  my  part,  to  correspond  with 
a  young  gentleman  in  Greek.  Only  think  of  how  much  importance  I  shall  feel  in 
the  literary  world  !  Tell  me  what  most  interests  you  in  Eollin ;  in  the  wars  of 
contending  princes,  under  whose  banners  you  enlist,  to  whose  cause  you  ardently 
wish  success.  Write  me  with  what  stories  in  Virgil  you  are  most  delighted.  Is 
not  that  a  charming  one  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  ?  I  suppose  you  have  a  Euryalus 
among  your  companions  ;  or  don't  little  boys  love  each  other  as  well  as  they  did  in 
Virgil's  time  ?  How  beautifully  he  describes  the  morning  !  Do  write  to  your 
affectionate  friend  Sarah."  * 

Amid  such  pursuits  as  this  letter  indicates,  Waldo  Emerson  passed 
his  boyhood,  in  his  native  city  of  Boston,  then  a  town  of  greater  fame 
than  magnitude  or  wealth,  but  of  a  greater  spirit  than  either.  As  he 
then  saw  it  he  has  sung  it,  and  the  memory  of  that  Boston  will  be 
best  preserved  in  his  nervous  lyrical  verse : 

"  The  rocky  nook  with  hill-tops  three 
Looked  eastward  from  the  farms. 
And  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea 
^  Took  Boston  in  its  arms  ; 

*  Miss  Bradford  married  the  uncle  of  Waldo  Emerson,  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley,  in  1818,  and 
lived  in  his  parish  of  Waltham  until  the  spring  of  1846,  when  they  removed  to  the  Old  Manse 
in  Concord,  which  Hawthorne  had  just  left  vacant.  It  had  been  the  early  home  of  Mr.  Ripley, 
whose  father,  Rev.  Dr.  Ripley,  had  married  Mrs.  Emerson,  grandmother  of  Waldo  Emerson. 
In  this  picturesque  residence  Mrs.  Ripley  spent  the  rest  of  her  life,  dying  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
four.  She  continued  to  be  one  of  the  most  intimate  friends  of  Mr.  Emerson  and  his  circle  of 
companions,  and  for  many  years  she  spent  her  Sunday  evenings  at  his  house.  She  was  the 
most  learned  woman  ever  seen  in  New  England,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  sweetest  and  the 
most  domestic.  Closely  associated  with  her  for  more  than  twenty  years  was  Miss  Elizabeth 
Hoar  (a  sister  of  Judge  Hoar  and  of  Senator  Hoar,  and  the  betrothed  of  Charles  Emei'sou,  who 
died  in  1836)— a  woman  also  of  much  learning,  of  a  tender  and  self-renouncing  nature,  and  of 
the  warmest  affections.  These  ladies,  with  Mrs.  Emerson,  and  with  the  younger  friends  and 
kindred  who  clustered  about  them,  gave  to  the  society  of  Concord  the  perfect  charm  of 
womanly  grace  and  domestic  sentiment,  to  which  Margaret  Fuller  added  a  sibylline  quality, 
and  Mrs.  Alcott  a  practical  benevolence  not  less  rare.  Mrs.  Alcott  died  in  1877,  Miss  Hoar  in 
1878,  Mrs.  Ripley  in  1867,  and  all  are  buried  among  the  pines  on  the  summit  of  the  slope  of 
the  hill  where  Hawthorne  and  Thoreau  are  buried. 


RALPH   WALDO  EMER80N.  45 

The  men  of  yore  were  stout  and  poor, 
And  sailed  for  bread  to  every  shore. 

"  And  where  they  went,  on  trade  intent. 
They  did  what  freemen  can  ; 
Their  dauntless  ways  did  all  men  praise. 
The  merchant  was  a  man. 
The  world  was  made  for  honest  trade — 
To  plant  and  eat  be  none  afraid. 

"  We  grant  no  dukedoms  to  the  few, 
We  hold  like  rights,  and  shall ; 
Equal  on  Sunday  in  the  pew. 
On  Monday  in  the  Mall. 
For  what  avail  the  plow  or  sail. 
Or  land,  or  life,  if  freedom  fail  ? 

"  The  sea  returning,  day  by  day. 
Restores  the  world-wide  mart ; 
So  let  each  dweller  on  the  Bay 
Fold  Boston  in  his  heart. 
Till  these  echoes  be  choked  with  snows. 
Or  over  the  town  blue  ocean  flows. 

"  Let  the  blood  of  her  hundred  thousands 
Throb  in  each  manly  vein  ; 
And  the  wit  of  all  her  wisest 
Make  sunshine  in  her  brain. 
For  you  can  teach  the  lightning  speech 
And  round  the  globe  your  voices  reach  ! " 

Here  the  Boston  of  the  eighteenth  century  finds  itseK  connected 
with  that  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  the  period 
of  Emerson's  life  in  that  city  was  the  connecting  link  between  the 
two.  Born  there  in  1803,  he  left  it  in  1833,  when  it  had  grown  from 
a  town  of  25,000  to  a  city  of  65,000 ;  it  now  numbers  more  than 
350,000.  It  has  given  birth  to  no  poet  greater  than  Emerson, 
although  Poe  and  Channing^  Sprague  and  the  elder  Dana,  were  also 


46       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

bom  there ;  and  none  of  its  poets  have  so  well  understood  and  illus- 
trated its  peculiar  spirit.  He  breathed  in  its  atmosphere  and  its  tra- 
ditions as  a  boy,  while  he  drove  his  mother's  cow  to  pasture  along 
what  are  now  the  finest  streets.  He  learned  his  fii'st  lessons  of  life  in 
its  schools  and  churches ;  listened  to  Webster  and  Story  in  its  courts, 
to  Josiah  Quincy  and  Harrison  Gray  Otis  in  its  town-meetings  at  Fan- 
euil  Hall ;  heard  sermons  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-house,  and,  in  the 
years  of  his  pastorate  in  Boston,  sometimes  preached  there.  I  find, 
for  example,  that  he  gave  the  "  charity  lecture  "  at  the  Old  South  on 
the  first  Sunday  of  June,  1832.  He  was  then,  and  had  been  for  some 
time,  one  of  the  school  committee  of  Boston ;  a  few  years  earlier  he 
was  the  chaplain  of  the  Massachusetts  Senate.  After  his  graduation 
at  Harvard  College,  in  1821,  he  had  taught  in  his  brother's  school  for 
young  ladies,  in  Boston.  This  school  was  in  Federal  Street,  near 
the  church  of  Dr.  Channing,  where  in  after  years  Mr.  Emerson  occa- 
sionally preached.  He  studied  divinity,  nominally  with  Dr.  Chan- 
ning ;  but  the  great  preacher  of  the  Unitarians  took  very  little  super- 
vision of  his  studies.  His  own  parish  was  at  the  North  End,  in  Han- 
over Street — the  same  over  which  Cotton  Mather  and  his  father.  In- 
crease Mather,  had  preached  in  the  time  of  Franklin.  The  Boston  of 
history  was  a  small  place,  and  its  famous  men  lived  in  sight  of  each 
other's  houses.  Franklin  was  born  within  gun-shot  of  where  Emerson 
and  Samuel  Adams  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  bom ;  and  Morse,  the 
inventor  of  the  electric  telegraph,  who  could  "  teach  the  lightning 
speech,"  was  born  in  Charlestpwn,  just  across  the  river  from  Mr. 
Emerson's  parish. 

The  young  scholar  who,  at  the  age  of  eleven,  loved  "  to  trifle  in 
rhyme,"  and  whose  favorite  language  was  Greek,  entered  college  at 
fourteen  and  was  graduated  at  eighteen.  He  continued  to  write  verses 
during  his  boyhood  and  youth,  and  in  college  wrote  two  poems  as 
exercises,  one  of  which  w:as  to  be  given  at  a  public  exhibition.  Being 
required  to  show  this  to  his  professor  (who  was  Edward  Channing, 
brother  of  the  famous  Dr.  Channing),  the  only  criticism  made 
upon  it  was,  "  You  had  better  write  another  poem."     "  What  a  use- 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  47 

less  remark  was  that ! "  said  Mr.  Emerson,  afterward ;  "  lie  might  at 
least  have  pointed  out  to  me  some  things  in  my  verses  that  were 
better  than  others,  for  all  could  not  have  been  equally  bad."  He 
added  that  he  received  at  college  veiy  little  instruction  or  criticism 
from  the  professors  that  w^as  of  value  to  him,  except  from  Edward 
Everett,  who  was  then  Greek  professor,  and  who  had  newly  returned 
from  Europe,  full  of  learning  and  enthusiasm.  For  a  year  his  tutor 
in  mathematics  was  Caleb  Gushing,  since  so  conspicuous  in  Massa- 
chusetts politics.  In  studying  divinity,  from  1823  to  1827,  he  heard 
the  lectures  of  Professor  Norton,  and  derived  benefit  from  his  criti- 
cisms. He  profited  most,  however — as  he  thought,  and  as  his  sermons 
will  show — from  the  preaching  and  the  conversation  of  Dr.  Chan- 
ning,  of  whom  he  has  spoken  as  one  of  the  three  most  eloquent  men 
he  ever  heard,  the  others  being  Daniel  Webster  and  Wendell  Phillips. 
His  own  pulpit  eloquence  was  singularly  attractive,  though  by  no 
means  equally  so  to  all  persons.  In  1829,  before  the  two  friends 
had  met,  Mr.  Bronson  Alcott  heard  him  preach  in  Dr.  Channing's 
church,  on  "  The  Universality  of  the  Moral  Sentiment,"  and  was  much 
struck,  as  he  said,  "  with  the  youth  of  the  preacher,  the  beauty  of  his 
elocution,  and  the  direct  and  sincere  manner  in  which  he  addressed 
his  hearers."  This  particular  sermon  was  probably  one  that  he  had 
written  in  July,  1829,  concerning  which  he  had  said  to  a  friend,  while 
writing  it :  "I  am  striving  hard  to-day  to  establish  the  sovereignty 
and  self-existent  excellence  of  the  Moral  Law  in  popular  argument, 
and  slay  the  Utility  swiney  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  he  may  have 
taken  a  tone  toward  the  Utilitarians  which  gave  some  ground  for  a 
remark  made,  not  long  after,  by  the  wife  of  a  Boston  minister  with 
whom  Mr.  Emerson  exchanged.  "  Waldo  Emerson  came  last  Sunday," 
said  this  lady,  "and  preached  a  sermon  for  George  with  his  chin  in 
the  air,  in  scorn  of  the  whole  human  race."  But  the  usual  tone  of 
his  discourses  could  never  justify  this  peevish  criticism.  Some  years 
later,  when  he  was  preaching  plain  sermons  to  a  small  country  congre- 
gation at  Lexington,  which  was  waiting  to  settle  another  minister 
(Mr.   Emerson  havmg  declined  to  settle  there),  some  one  asked  a 


48        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

woman  in  the  parisli  why  they  had  not  invited  Mr.  A (a  learned 

and  eloquent  preacher,  since  become  famous).  She  replied,  with  the 
greatest  sincerity,  "  You  do  not  consider  what  a  simple,  plain  people 
we  are ;  we  can  hardly  understand  any  minister  except  Mr.  Emerson." 
Only  two  or  three  of  the  sermons  preached  by  him  have  ever  been 
printed.  That  which  he  gave  in  his  church  September  9,  1832,  when 
resigning  his  pastorate  because  of  his  scruples  concerning  the  rite  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  has  been  published  in  Mr.  Frothingham's  "  Tran- 
scendentalism in  New  England." 

Mr.  Emerson  began  preaching  as  a  candidate,  and  for  the  supply 
of  pulpits  casually  vacant,  in  1827.  In  November  of  that  year  he 
preached  three  Sundays  for  Dr.  Dewey,  then  settled  in  New  Bed- 
ford ;  and  on  Thanksgiving  Day  he  preached  for  his  uncle.  Rev.  Mr. 
Ripley,  at  Waltham.  In  April,  1828,  he  supplied  the  Concord  pulpit 
of  Dr.  Ripley  for  two  Sundays,  and  attended  funerals  and  other 
pastoral  services  during  his  grandfather's  absence  at  the  South.  Later 
in  the  year  1828  he  was  invited  to  become  the  colleague  of  Rev. 
Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  in  the  Second  Church  at  Boston,  and  accepted  the 
call.  He  was  ordained  there  early  in  1829,  Dr.  Ripley  giving  the 
"  charge  "  upon  that  occasion.*  In  course  of  it  he  said :  "  It  may  be 
asked  '  Wliy  is  this  service  assigned  to  one  so  aged,  and  so  little  con- 
versant in  this  metropolis  ? '  Because  I  was  the  friend  and  successor 
of  your  excellent  grandfather,  and  became  the  legal  parent  and  guar- 
dian of  his  orphan  children;  because  I  guided  the  youthful  days, 
directed  the  early  studies,  introduced  into  the  ministry,  witnessed  the 
celebrity,  and  deeply  lamented  the  early  death  of  your  beloved  father  ; 
and  because  no  clergyman  present  can  feel  a  livelier  interest  or  purer 
joy  on  seeing  you  risen  up  in  his  stead,  and  taking  part  with  us  in 
this  ministry  in  your  native  city,  where  his  eloquent  voice  is  still 

Mr.  Emerson  had  asked  Doctor  Ripley  to  preach  his  ordination  sermon,  as  he  had 
preached  that  of  his  father,  Eev.  William  Emerson,  at  Harvard  in  1792,  but  his  aged  kinsman 
declined,  saying,  "My  son  Sam  has  never  been  invited  to  preach  an  ordination  sermon;  I 
should  prefer  you  would  ask  him."  Eev.  Samuel  Ripley  therefore  preached  the  sermon,  and 
his  father  gave  the  charge. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  49 

remembered,  and  his  memory  affectionately  cherished.*  Of  the  son 
he  said :  "  We  cheerfully  express  our  joy  at  the  ordination  of  one 
whose  moral,  religious,  and  literary  character  is  so  fair  and  promising. 
We  cherish  the  expectation  that  you  will  make  laudable  progress  in 
everything  good  and  excellent — that  you  will  be  a  wise  teacher  and 
an  affectionate  pastor.  Your  life  must  be  a  continuous  lecture  on 
piety  and  goodness,  on  personal  \drtues  and  relative  duties.  Your 
religion  must  be  carried  into  the  elegant  houses  of  the  opulent,  and 
the  humble  dwellings  of  the  poor.  You  must  be  quick  to  discern  and 
embrace  opportunities  to  instruct  the  youth,  to  teach  the  childi-en, 
and,  like  our  Saviour,  to  take  little  ones  into  your  arms  and  bless 
them.  This  branch  of  duty  will  be  easier  to  you  than  to  most  minis- 
ters, both  from  natural  disposition  and  habit."  And  then,  as  if  with 
the  spirit  of  prophecy,  this  venerable  man  added :  "  Professing  Chris- 
tians may  censure  you,  and  exclude  you  from  the  arms  of  their  charity. 
You  will  find  it  a  serious  trial  to  be  deemed  and  treated  as  one  whose 
belief  and  preaching  are  dangerous  to  the  souls  of  your  hearers ;  to 
be  daily  misrepresented,  and  your  usefulness  impeded ;  to  be  denied 
the  Christian  name,  and  pointed  at  before  ignorant  people  as  a  moral 
pestilence."  This  is  what  did  in  fact  happen  to  Mr.  Emerson  after  he 
found  himself  unable  to  accept  the  creed  and  perform  the  rites  of  the 
sect  to  which  he  belonged ;  and  a  painful  controversy,  in  which  he 
took  little  part,  followed  the  preaching  of  his  sermon  explaining  his 
personal  ^aews  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  in  September,  1832. 

He  finally  bade  farewell  to  his  Boston  parish  in  December,  1832, 
and  early  in  1833  embarked  on  his  first  voyage  to  Europe.     He  sailed 

*  Pulpit  eloquence  and  literary  skill  were  hereditary  in  the  Emerson  family.  Both  the 
father  and  the  grandfather  of  Mr,  R.  W.  Emerson  were  noted  for  these.  An  aunt  of  his  was 
once  passing  through  Concord  in  the  stage-coach,  not  long  after  the  Revolution,  when  one  of 
her  fellow-passengers,  a  stranger,  inquired  who  preached  in  the  village  church,  which  he  saw 
from  the  window.  Being  told  that  it  was  the  successor  of  Rev.  William  Emerson,  of  Concord, 
he  said :  "  I  once  heard  that  minister  preach  in  that  church  the  most  eloquent  sermon  I  ever 
listened  to  " — a  compliment  to  her  father  which  greatly  pleased  Miss  Mary  Emerson.  This  lady 
had  much  to  do  with  the  early  education  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Emerson  and  his  brothers,  and  was  her- 
self one  of  the  best  writers  of  her  time. 
7 


50 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


up  the  Mediterranean  in  a  vessel  bound  for  Sicily,  and  went  as  far 
eastward  as  Malta.  E-eturning  through  Italy,  France,  and  England, 
he  was  at  Florence  in  May,  1833,  and  in  July  he  reached  London. 

Mr.  Emerson's  health,  which  had  always  been  delicate,  and  which 
in  1832  had  been  greatly  affected  by  bereavement  and  controversy, 
was  quite  restored  by  this  sea-voyage,  and  his  intellectual  horizon  was 
widened  by  the  experiences  of  travel.  In  Florence  he  met  Horatio 
Greenough,  the  first  great  American  sculptor,  and  dined  with  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  then  "  living  in  a  cloud  of  pictures  at  his  Villa  Ghe- 
rardesca."  In  London  he  saw  Wellington  in  Westminster  Abbey,  at 
the  funeral  of  Wilberforce,  and  called   on   Coleridge.      He  made  a 


EMERSON'S   LIBBART. 


pilgrimage  to  the  North  to  visit  Wordsworth  at  Eydal  Mount,  and 
Carlyle  at  Craigenputtock,  in  Scotland,  where,  in  a  sort  of  exile,  six- 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  51 

teen  miles  from  Dumfries,  in  Nithsdale,  "amid  desolate,  heathery 
hills,  the  lonely  scholar  nourished  his  mighty  heart."  Carlyle  after- 
ward spoke  of  that  visit  as  if  it  were  the  coming  of  an  angel;  and 
from  that  day  onward  the  two  friends  corresponded  with  each  other. 
In  sight  of  Wordsworth's  country,  in  August,  1833,  Carlyle  and 
Emerson  "  sat  down  and  talked  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul."  Had 
Goethe  been  living  then,  the  young  American  "  might  have  wandered 
into  Germany  also ; "  but,  as  it  was,  he  returned  to  Boston  in  October, 
and  the  next  year  withdrew  from  his  native  city  to  Concord,  as 
already  mentioned.  It  was  not  at  this  withdrawal  that  he  wrote  the 
often-quoted  "  Good-bye,  proud  world !  I'm  going  home  " — in  which 
occui'S  this  contrast  between  the  city  and  the  country : 

"  Good-bye  to  Flattery's  fawning  face. 
To  Grandeur  with  his  wise  grimace  ; 
To  upstart  Wealth's  averted  eye. 
To  supple  Office  low  and  high  ; 
To  crowded  halls,  to  court  and  street ; 
To  frozen  hearts  and  hasting  feet ; 
To  those  who  go,  and  those  who  come ; 
Good-bye,  proud  world  !  I'm  going  home. 

*'  I  am  going  to  my  own  hearth-stone, 
Bosomed  in  yon  green  hills  alone — 
A  secret  nook  in  a  pleasant  land. 
Whose  groves  the  frolic  fairies  planned  ; 
Where  arches  green,  the  livelong  day. 
Echo  the  blackbird's  roundelay. 
And  vulgar  feet  have  never  trod 
A  spot  that  is  sacred  to  thought  and  God." 

These  verses  were  written  at  an  earlier  date,  in  Newton,  near 
Boston,  where  Mr.  Emei-son  spent  a  summer  or  two.  But  they  apply 
very  well  to  his  subsequent  retirement  to  Concord. 

In  his  retreat  at  Concord,  the  poet's  inspiration,  which  had  been 
felt  but  little  during  the  period  of  Mr.  Emerson's  theological  studies 
and  pastoral  duties,  revisited  him,  and  constantly  returned  for  thirty 


52        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

years.  When,  in  his  twenty-first  year,  lie  sent  a  Christmas  poem 
to  a  friend,  he  said:  "If  it  were  not  that  my  Muse  unluckily 
caught  cold  and  died  a  few  years  since,  these  verses  would  be 
better." 

From  that  time  (1823)  to  1835,  few  poems  were  written  by  him 
that  he  has  owned  or  published.  Some  verses  on  "  Fame  "  belong  to 
this  period,  and  the  graceful  verses  to  "  Helen  at  the  South "  were 
written  before  1830.  But  from  1835  (when  he  first  appeared  as  an 
author  of  aught  but  sermons)  his  verses  began  to  be  remarkable, 
though  few.  In  April,  1836,  he  wrote  the  hymn  for  the  dedication  of 
the  Concord  battle-monument,  in  which  occurs  the  immortal  line  : 

"  And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

In  the  same  year  he  published  "  Nature,"  his  first  book,  which  is  a 
prose  poem  from  beginning  to  end,  and  which  contains  a  few  of  those 
sententious  couplets  that  were  afterward  so  common  in  his  volumes. 

"  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings, 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings  : 
The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose. 
And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

It  is  to  an  earlier  period  than  this  that  some  of  the  love-poems 
belong — that,  for  example,  "  To  Eva,"  and  those  lines  which,  if  we 
did  not  find  them  in  his  book,  we  .should  hardly  suspect  to  be  Emer- 
son's, called  "The  Amulet."  These  two  poems  he  retains  in  the 
latest  printed  selection  from  his  published  and  unpublished  verses, 
but  excludes  another,  quite  as  charming,  which  may  be  cited  here : 

*r  Thine  eyes  still  shined  for  me,  though  far 
I  lonely  roved  the  land  or  sea : 
As  I  behold  yon  evening  star, 
Which  yet  beholds  not  me. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  53 

*'  This  morn  I  climbed  the  misty  hill. 
And  roamed  the  pastures  through  ; 
How  danced  thy  form  before  my  path. 
Amidst  the  deep-eyed  dew ! 

"  When  the  red-bird  spread  his  sable  wing, 
And  showed  his  side  of  flame  ; 
When  the  rose-bud  ripened  to  the  rose. 
In  both  I  read  thy  name." 

No  poet,  ancient  or  modern,  not  even  Shakespeare  or  Dante,  has 
more  clearly  divined  or  expressed  with  more  profound  utterance  the 
nature  of  love  than  Emerson,  though  the  poems  in  which  he  has 
expressly  dealt  with  that  passion  are  few.  To  be  a  poet  is  to  be  a 
lover,  and  the  feminine  Muse  is  but  the  unknown  quantity  in  the 
poet's  algebra,  by  which  he  expresses  now  this  element,  now  that,  in 
the  indeterminate  equation  of  love.  Or,  as  Emerson  better  announces 
this  mystery : 

**  The  sense  of  the  world  is  short. 

Long  and  various  the  report —  1 

To  love  and  be  beloved." 

In  another  epigram,  not  yet  acknowledged  by  him,  he  has  said : 

**  They  put  their  finger  on  their  lip — 
The  Powers  above  ; 
The  seas  their  islands  clip, 
The  moons  in  Ocean  dip — 
They  love,  but  name  not  love." 

In  that  masterly  and  mystical  lyric,  the  "  Ode  to  Beauty "  (first 
published  in  the  "Dial"  for  October,  1843),  he  pursues  this  theme 
further,  and,  indeed,  to  the  very  limits  of  human  insight : 

"  Who  gave  thee  0  Beauty  , 

The  keys  of  this  breast — 
Too  credulous  lover 
Of  blest  and  unblest  ? 


54       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Say  when  in  lapsed  ages 
Thee  knew  I  of  old  ? 
Or  what  was  the  service 
For  which  I  was  sold  ? 
When  first  my  eyes  saw  thee 
*    I  found  me  thy  thrall. 
By  magical  drawings. 
Sweet  tyrant  of  all  ! 
Love  drinks  at  (hy  fountain 
False  waters  of  thirst  ; 
Thou  intimate  stranger  ! 
Thou  latest  and  first ! 


''  Queen  of  things  !     I  dare  not  die 
In  Being's  deeps,  past  ear  and  eye, 
Lest  there  I  find  the  same  deceiver. 
And  be  the  sport  of  Fate  forever. 
Dread  Power,  but  dear  !  if  God  thou  be. 
Unmake  me  quite,  or  give  thyself  to  me  ! " 

Here  is  a  flight  of  love-song  beyond  Sappho  and  Anacreon,  or  the 
Persian  poets,  and  soaring  in  another  poem  ("  The  Celestial  Love  ") 
to  a  height  still  more  transcendent : 


To  a  region  where  all  form 
In  one  only  Form  dissolves  ; 
In  a  region  where  the  wheel 
On  which  all  beings  ride> 

Visibly  revolves ; 
Where  the  starred,  eternal  worm 
Girds  the  world  with  bound  and  term  ; 
Where  unlike  things  are  like. 
Where  good  and  ill, 
And  joy  and  moan. 

Melt  into  one. 
There  Past,  Present,  Future  shoot 
Triple  blossoms  from  one  root." 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  55 

From  this  ecstasy  the  passage  is  brief  into  that  other  kindred 
mood  in  which  the  parable  of  "  Uriel "  was  ^written — a  myth  that  per- 
petually receives  and  needs  interpretation : 

"  It  fell  in  the  ancient  periods 
Which  the  brooding  soul  surveys, 
Or  ever  the  wild  Time  coined  itself 
Into  calendar  months  and  days. 

A  sad  self-knowledge  withering  fell 

On  the  beauty  of  Uriel ; 

In  heaven  once  eminent,  the  god 

Withdrew,  that  hour,  into  his  cloud  ; 

Whether  doomed  to  long  gyration 

In  the  sea  of  generation. 

Or  by  knowledge  grown  too  bright 

To  hit  the  nerve  of  feebler  sight. 

Straightway  a  forgetting  wind 

Stole  over  the  celestial  kind. 

And  their  lips  the  secret  kept, 

If  in  ashes  the  fire-seed  slept. 

But  now  and  then  truth-speaking  things 
Shamed  the  angel's  veiling  wings  ; 
And  out  of  the  good  of  evil  born 
Came  Uriel's  laugh  of  cherub  scorn. 
And  a  blush  tinged  the  upper  sky. 
And  the  gods  shook,  they  knew  not  why." 

Verses  like  these  revealed  to  all  his  discerning  readers  of  poetry 
that  a  new  poet  had  appeared,  whose  every  utterance,  be  it  better  or 
worse,  was  a  new  surprise.  In  the  same  volume  which  contained  the 
poems  cited  (published  in  1847)  appeared  also  "Merlin,"  wherein 
Emerson  announced,  in  words  not  less  dark  and  profound,  his  theory 
of  the  poet's  mission.     He  was,  among  other  things,  to 

**  mount  to  Paradise 
By  the  stair- way  of  surprise." 


56       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Wherever  this  new  poet  miglit  be  going,  that  was  the  stair- way  he 
continually  used ;  provoking  admiration  sometimes,  sometimes  a  shud- 
der, but  more  frequently  laughter,  among  those  who  did  not  know 
him  or  understand  him.  The  Philistines  laughed  at  his  poems  in  the 
"Dial,"  where,  from  July,  1840,  to  July,  1844,  he  printed  the  best  of 
his  earlier  verses.  In  1843,  writing  about  Wordsworth  in  this  maga- 
zine, he  said,  thinking,  perhaps,  of  his  own  reception  by  the  American 
critics :  "  In  the  debates  on  the  Copyright  Bill,  in  the  English  Parlia- 


rUE    ALCOTT    HOUSE. 


ment,  Mr.  Sergeant  Wakley,  the  coroner,  quoted  Wordsworth's  poetry 
in  derision,  and  asked  the  roaring  House  of  Commons  what  that 
meant,  and  whether  a  man  should  have  a  public  reward  for  writing 
such  stuff."  But  Emerson,  any  more  than  Wordsworth,  never  listened 
to  the  derision  and  seldom  to  the  advice  of  his  critics.  He  would  not 
conform  to  the  age,  but  wrote  on  until  the  age  should  conform  to  his 
genius.  As  he  predicts  of  the  true  bard  in  "Merlin,"  so  he  has  done 
before  and  since : 

"  He  shall  not  seek  to  weave. 
In  weak,  unhappy  times, 
Efficacious  rhymes ; 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  57 

Wait  his  returning  strength. 
Bird,  that  from  the  nadir's  floor 
To  the  zenith's  top  can  soar, 
The  soaring  orbit  of  the  Muse  exceeds  that  journey's  length. 
Nor,  profane,  affect  to  hit 
Or  compass  that,  by  meddling  wit. 
Which  only  the  propitious  mind 
Publishes  when  'tis  inclined." 

Or,  as  lie  wrote  in  prose,  in  1843,  when  reviewing  his  friend  Carlyle^s 
"  Past  and  Present " :  "  The  poet  cannot  descend  into  the  turbid  pres- 
ent without  injury  to  his  rarest  gifts.  Hence  that  necessity  of  isola- 
tion which  genius  has  always  felt.  He  must  stand  on  his  glass  tripod 
if  he  would  keep  his  electricity."  The  same  doctrine  appears  again 
and  again  in  his  verse  and  his  prose — in  "  Saadi,"  for  example,  which 
is  his  poetic  autobiography : 

"  Now  his  memory  is  a  den, 
A  sealed  tomb  from  gods  and  men. 
Whose  rich  secrets  not  transpire  ; 
Speech  should  be  like  air  and  fire  ; 
But  to  speak  when  he  assays. 
His  voice  is  bestial  and  base  ; 
Himself  he  heareth  hiss  or  hoot. 
And  crimson  shame  him  maketh  mute  ; 
But  whom  the  Muses  smile  upon. 
And  touch  with  soft  persuasion. 
His  words,  like  a  storm-wind,  can  bring 
Terror  and  Beauty  on  their  wing. 
Saadi !  so  far  thy  words  shall  reach. 
Suns  rise  and  set  in  Saadi's  speech." 

One  may  imagine  "  Saadi,"  as  first  published  in  the  "  Dial,"  and  in 
the  three  editions  of  the  "Poems"  since,  to  be  but  the  torso  of  a 
work  from  which  portions  have  been  broken  off  here  and  there — or 
which,  having  been  wrought  out  piecemeal,  has  never  been  brought 
together  by  the  author  into  a  single  whole.     Every  now  and  then. 


58        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

among  the  acknowledged  or  tlie  unacknowledged  verses  of  Emerson, 
we  find  fragments  of  "  Saadi,"  sometimes  under  other  names — for  ex- 
ample, these : 

"  There  are  beggars  in  Iran  and  Araby — 
Said  was  hungrier  than  all ; 
Men  said  he  was  a  fly 
That  came  to  every  festival. 

His  music  was  the  south  wind's  sigh, 

His  lamp  the  maiden'^  downcast  eye. 

And  ever  the  spell  of  beauty  came  * 

And  turned  the  drowsy  world  to  flame. 

"  Said  melted  the  days  in  cups  like  pearl. 
Served  high  and  low,  the  lord  and  the  churl ; 
Loved  harebells  nodding  on  a  rock, 
A  cabin  hung  with  curling  smoke. 
And  huts  and  tents  ;  nor  loved  he  less 
Stately  lords  in  palaces. 
Fenced  by  form  and  ceremony. 

"  Was  never  form  and  never  face 
^  So  sweet  to  Seyd  as  only  grace 

Which  did  not  slumber  like  a  stone. 
But  hovered  gleaming  and  was  gone. 
Beauty  chased  he  everywhere — 
In  flame,  in  storm,  in  clouds  of  air. 

"  While  thus  to  love  he  gave  his  days. 
In  loyal  worship,  scorning  praise. 
How  spread  their  lures  for  him  in  vain 
Thieving  Ambition  and  paltering  Gain  ! 
He  thought  it  happier  to  be  dead. 
To  die  for  Beauty  than  live  for  bread. 

"  Said  Saadi :  '  When  I  stood  before 
Hassan  the  camel-driver's  door, 
I  scorned  the  fame  of  Timour  brave — 
Timour  to  Hassan  was  a  slave. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  59 

In  every  glance  of  Hassan's  eye 

I  read  rich  years  of  victory. 

And  I,  who  cower  mean  and  small 

In  the  frequent  interval. 

When  wisdom  not  with  me  resides, 

Worship  toil's  wisdom  that  abides.' 

**  'Whispered  the  Muse  in  Saadi's  cot, 
*  0  gentle  Saadi  !  listen  not 
(Tempted  by  thy  praise  of  wit. 
Or  by  thirst  and  appetite 
For  the  talents  not  thine  own). 
To  sons  of  contradiction. 
Never,  son  of  eastern  morning. 
Follow  falsehood,  follow  scorning. 
Denounce  who  will,  who  will,  deny. 
And  pile  the  hills  to  scale  the  sky ; 
Let  theist,  atheist,  pantheist. 
Define  and  wrangle  how  they  list. 
Fierce  conserver,  fierce  destroyer. 
But  thou,  joy-giver  and  enjoyer. 
Unknowing  war,  unknowing  crime. 
Gentle  Saadi,  mind  thy  rhyme  ! 
Heed  not  what  the  brawlers  say. 
Heed  thou  only  Saadi's  lay.' " 

Without  taking  too  literally  this  ideal  portrait  of  a  poet  and 
scholar,  it  may  serve  as  the  picture  of  Emerson  drawn  by  himself.  In 
accord  with  this  idea,  he  has  resolutely  kept  within  the  limits  of  his 
genius — -has  avoided  controversy,  negation,  applause,  and  the  forcing 
of  his  talent  beyond  the  measure  of  its  powers.  No  man  has  disputed 
less,  few  have  affirmed  more.  And  while  many  have  written  much 
less  than  he  that  the  world  would  gladly  read,  few  have  published 
less,  in  comparison  with  the  great  mass  of  papers  which  remain  un- 
printed.  Scarcely  any  of  his  numerous  sermons  have  ever  been  pub- 
lished ;  most  of  his  speeches  on  political  and  social  occasions  remain 
uncollected  and  unedited ;  many  verses  exist  only  in  manuscript,  or 
have  been  withdrawn  from  publication ;  and  even  of  his  lectures,  from 


60        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


which  he  has  printed  freely,  for  nearly  forty  years,  a  great  many  still 
remain  in  manuscript.  Even  those  published  omit  much  that  was 
spoken — the  fine  lectures  on  History,  on  Love,  and  others,  displaying 
so  many  omissions  to  those  who  heard  them  that  the  author  was  at 
the  time  sorely  complained  of  by  his  faithful  hearers  for  leaving  out 
so  much  that  had  delighted  them.  Few  or  none  of  the  philosophical 
lectures  read  at  Harvard  University  eight  or  nine  years  ago,  and  de- 
signed to  make  part  of  what  Mr.  Emerson  calls  "  The  Natural  History 
of  the  Intellect,"  have  ever  been  printed.  This  work,  when  completed, 
was  to  be  the  author's  most  systematic  and  connected  treatise.    It  was 

to  contain,  what  could  not  fail 
to  be  of  interest  to  all  readers, 
Mr.  Emerson's  observations  on 
his  own  intellectual  processes 
and  methods,  of  which  he  has 
always  been  studiously  watch- 
ful, and  which,  from  his  habit 
of  writing,  he  has  carefully 
noted  down.  From  this  work, 
which,  even  if  not  finished,  will 
at  some  time  be  printed,  and 
from  his  correspondence  of 
these  many  years,  portions  of 
which  will  finally  be  printed,  it 
will  be  possible  to  reconstruct 
hereafter  a  rare  and  remarkable 
episode  of  literary  history. 

By  far  the  largest  part  of 

all   that   has  flowed   from  the 

pen  of   Emerson   was   written 

in  the  small  libraiy  represented 

in  the  sketch  on  page  50.     Here,  too,  the  portrait  of  the  poet  was 

drawn  by  Mr.  Eaton,  on  a  recent  summer  afternoon ;  while  at  evening, 

in  the  adjoining  parlor,  to  which  the  doors  shown  in  the  engraving  lead. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  61 

Mr.  Alcott  and  his  friend  Dr.  Jones,  the  Illinois  Platonist,  held  conver- 
sations in  a  circle  of  Mr.  Emerson's  neighbors.  In  this  house,  indeed, 
have  occurred  more  of  those  famous  "  conversations "  of  Mr.  Alcott 
than  in  any  other  place.  Sometimes  these  Platonic  dialogues  have 
been  carried  on  in  the  library  itself,  with  the  volumes  of  the  Greek 
master  looking  down  from  the  shelves  upon  his  New  England  dis- 
ciples, and  the  Sibyls  of  Raphael,  with  the  Fates  of  Michael  Angelo, 
glancing  from  the  walls  at  the  utterers  of  oracles  as  enigmatical  as  their 
own,  if  not  so  conclusive.  Here  have  sat  Margaret  Fuller,  Hawthorne, 
Whittier,  Longfellow,  Sumner,  Thoreau,  the  Channings,  the  Lowells, 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  Jones  Very,  Henry  James  and  his  sons,  Louisa 
Alcott,  Lord  Amberley  and  his  free-thoughted  wife,  the  English  Stan- 
leys, the  American  Bradfords,  Theodore  Parker,  Elizabeth  Peabody, 
Julia  Ward  Howe,  Wendell  Phillips,  John  Brown,  Wentworth  Hig- 
ginson,  George  William  Curtis,  Bret  Harte,  and  hundreds  more  who 
have  made  for  themselves  a  name  in  poetry,  oratory,  art,  literature,  or 
politics,  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  To  many  of  these  men  and  women, 
and  to  thousands  that  have  never  distinguished  themselves,  Concord 
has  been  for  years  a  Mecca,  toward  which  their  thoughts  turned  when 
their  steps  could  not  bend  thitherward,  but  which  has  also  been  the 
shrine  of  their  frequent  pilgrimage.  Hawthorne  perceived  and  felt 
this  tendency  when  he  went,  in  1842,  to  dwell  in  the  Old  Manse,  and 
he  first,  perhaps,  described  it.  "Young  visionaries,"  he  said,  "to 
whom  just  so  much  of  insight  had  been  imparted  as  to  make  life  all  a 
labyrinth  around  them,  came  to  seek  the  clew  that  should  lead  them 
out  of  their  self -involved  bewilderment.  Gray-headed  theorists — whose 
systems,  at  first  aii*,  had  imprisoned  them  in  an  iron  framework — trav- 
eled painfully  to  his  door,  not  to  ask  deliverance,  but  to  invite  the  free 
spirit  into  their  own  thralldom.  People  that  had  lighted  on  a  new 
thought,  or  a  thought  that  they  fancied  new,  came  to  Emerson,  as 
the  finder  of  a  glittering  gem  hastens  to  a  lapidary  to  ascertain  its 
value.  For  myself,  there  had  been  epochs  in  my  life  when  it,  too, 
might  have  asked  of  this  prophet  the  master-word  that  should 
solve  me  the  riddle  of  the  universe ;  but  now,  being  happy,  I  felt 


62 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS, 


as  if  there  were  no  question  to  be  put,  and  therefore  admired 
Emerson  as  a  poet  of  deep  beauty  and  austere  tenderness,  but 
sought  nothing    from    him  as  a  philosopher."     With  a  clearer  per- 


THE    LEFT-HAND    FRONT    ROOM    OF   THE    OLD    MANSE. 


ception,  the  result  of  a  longer  intimacy,  the  poet  Channing  has  cele- 
brated this  part  of  Emerson's  life : 


"  Not  always  went  he  lonely  ;  for  his  thought 
Retained  the  touch  of  one  whose  guest  he  was — 
A  large  and  generous  man,  who,  on  our  moors, 
Built  up  his  thought  (though  with  an  Indian  tongue, 
And  fittest  to  have  sung  at  Persian  feasts), 
Yet  dwelt  among  us  as  the  sage  he  was — 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  63 

Sage  of  his  days,  patient  and  proudly  true — 

Whose  word  was  worth  the  world,  whose  heart  was  pure. 

Oh,  such  a  heart  was  his  !  no  gate  or  bar — 

The  poorest  wretch  that  ever  passed  his  door. 

Welcome  as  highest  king  or  fairest  friend, 

To  all  his  store,  and  to  the  world  beside. 

For  if  the  genius  of  all  learning  flamed 

Aloft  in  those  clear  eyes ;  if  never  hour. 

Nor  e'en  the  smallest  instance  of  his  times. 

Could  ever  flit,  nor  give  that  soul  reward ; 

Yet  in  his  sweet  relations  with  his  race 

Pure  mercy  lived 

The  merest  waif,  from  nothing,  cast  upon 
The  shores  of  this  rich  heart,  became  a  gem. 
So  regal  then  its  setting." 

Mr.  Alcott  also  lias  said  his  word  about  this  hospitality  of  the 
friend,  with  whom  his  own  name  is  so  inseparably  associated  that 
when  we  think  of  Alcott  we  must  remember  Emerson.  Their  houses 
have  stood  for  many  years  in  the  same  neighborhood — Mr.  Alcott's 
being  the  very  farm-house,  under  the  hill-side  on  the  Lexington 
road,  which  Hawthorne  takes  as  the  abode  of  one  of  his  heroes 
in  "  Septimius  Felton,"  Like  Hawthorne's  own  "  Wayside "  just 
beyond,  it  long  ago  received  from  Alcott's  graceful  hand  alter- 
ations and  additions  that  converted  the  plain  cottage  into  a 
picturesque  home  for  thought  and  literature.  In  this  house,  em- 
bowered in  orchards  and  vines,  and  overtopped  by  the  familiar 
pine  wood  of  the  Concord  landscape,  Mr.  Alcott  once  wrote  thus 
concerning  Mr.  Emerson : 

"  Fortunate  the  visitor  who  is  admitted  of  a  morning  for  the  high  discourse, 
or  permitted  to  Join  the  poet  in  his  afternoon  walks  to  Walden,  the  Cliffs,  or  else- 
wheie — hours  to  be  remembered  as  unlike  any  others  in  the  calendar  of  experiences. 
Shall  I  describe  them  as  sallies  oftenest  into  the  cloud-lands — into  scenes  and  inti- 
macies ever  new,  none  the  less  novel  nor  remote  than  when  first  experienced  ? — 
interviews,  however,  bringing  their  own  trail  of  perplexing  thoughts — costing  some 
days'  duties,  several  nights'  sleep  oftentimes,  to  restore  one  to  his  place  and  poise. 


64        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Certainly  safer  not  to  venture  without  the  sure  credentials,  unless  one  will  have  his 
pretensions  pricked,  his  conceits  reduced  in  their  vague  dimensions.  But  to  the 
modest,  the  ingenuous,  the  gifted — welcome  !  nor  can  any  bearing  be  more  poetic 
and  polite  to  all  such — to  youth  and  accomplished  women  especially.  His  is  a 
faith  approaching  to  superstition  concerning  admirable  persons,  the  rumor  of 
excellence  of  any  sort  being  like  the  arrival  of  a  new  gift  to  mankind,  and  he 
the  first  to  proffer  his  recognition  and  hope.  He,  if  any,  must  have  taken 
the  census  of  the  admirable  people  of  his  time,  numbering  as  many  among  his 
friends  as  most  living  Americans  ;  while  he  is  already  recognized  as  the  repre- 
sentative mind  of  his  country,  to  whom  distinguished  foreigners  are  especially 
commended  when  visiting  America." 

To  wMcli  may  be  added  Emerson's  own  hint  in  "  Saadi " : 

"  Simple  maids  and  noble  youth 
Are  welcome  to  the  man  of  truth  ; 
Most  welcome  they  who  need  him  most. 
They  feed  the  spring  which  they  exhaust. 
For  greater  need 
Draws  better  deed ; 
But,  critic,  spare  thy  vanity, 
Nor  show  thy  pompous  parts 
To  vex  with  odious  subtlety 
The  cheerer  of  men's  hearts." 

This  poem  was  written  in  tlie  fullness  of  manly  strength,  near 
the  outset  of  Emerson's  literary  career.  Throughout  the  verses 
of  that  period  there  breathes  no  thought  of  age  or  weakness. 
They  are  like  the  utterance  of 

"  Olympian  bards  who  sung 
Divine  Ideas  below. 
Which  always  find  us  young 
And  always  keep  us  so." 

But  age  came  surely  on,  though  slower  than  with  most  men,  and 
was  perceived  by  the  poet  himself,  before  any  of  his  listeners  saw  the 
autumnal  shadow.     More  than  twelve  years  ago,  in  his  poem  "  Ter- 


RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON.  65 

minus,"  Emerson  accepted  the  warning  and  declared  anew,  in  advance 
of  old  age,  his  youthful  faith : 

"  Economize  the  failing  river — 
ISTot  the  less  adore  the  Giver ; 
Leave  the  many  and  hold  the  few. 
Timely  wise,  accept  the  terms. 
Soften  the  fall  with  wary  foot ; 
A  little  while 
Still  plan  and  smile. 
And,  fault  of  novel  germs. 
Mature  the  unfallen  fruit. 

As  the  bird  trims  her  to  the  gale, 
I  trim  myself  to  the  storm  of  time, 
I  man  the  rudder,  reef  the  sail. 
Obey  the  voice  at  eve  obeyed  at  prime ; 
Lowly  faithful,  banish  fear. 
Eight  onward  drive  unharmed  ; 
Tlie  port,  well  worth  the  cruise,  is  near, 
And  every  wave  is  charmed.'" 

Mr.  Eaton's  portrait  well  presents  the  aged  poet,  now  passing  into 
silence,  whose  voice,  from  first  to  last,  has  been  in  this  lofty  key.  It 
will  be  for  posterity  to  fix  his  rank  among  the  poets  of  the  world,  but 
that  he  must  rank  among  them,  and  in  no  obscure  place,  is  certain. 
With  that  proud  humility  which  distinguishes  him  among  his  contem- 
porai'ies,  and  in  allusion  to  the  few  readers  that  his  poems  have  yet 
found,  he  said  in  October  last,  "It  has  been  settled  that  I  can  not 
write  poetry."  The  friend  to  whom  he  said  it  asked,  "  Has  that  at 
last  been  determined  ? "  "  Yes,  that  is  the  voice  of  the  public."  "  It 
was  not  so  reported  to  me,"  said  his  friend ;  "  I  heard  that  you  could 
write  nothing  else  than  poetry."  The  wise  old  man  smiled,  as  always 
when  he  hears  a  close  reply,  and  said :  "  I  suppose  everybody  who 
writes  verses  at  all  has  had  this  experience — you  must  have  had  it — 
they  sometimes  wrote  lucky  verses  which  seem  excellent  to  them- 


66 


THE  BOMBS  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


selves,  however  they  may  appear  to  others — so  good  that  they  do  not 
get  finished."  His  hearer  might  have  responded  that  the  unfinished 
poems  are  always  the  best,  that  the  great  world  is  but  one  verse  in  an 
endless  song,  and  that  the  briefest  fragment  of  a  noble  strain  is  more 
imperishable  than  tlie  heavens  themselves : 

"  An  iinrequested  star  did  gently  slide 
Before  the  wise  men  to  a  greater  light." 


GRAVES    OF    HAWTHORNE    AND    THOKEAU    IN    SLEEPY    HOLLOW    CEMETERY. 


C'iUii^  Ut.CCi\  i^Y*^ 


AvwA^  ^>/M .  <=^:^<»-r>-o^  iSix^-«i 


^oyjv-^'j.jr^ft .  \^y-§ 


Longfellow's  drawing-room. 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


The  work  of  most  writers,  if  it  be  read  in  the  order  in  whicli  it 
was  produced,  and  with  a  careful  analysis  of  its  elements,  presents,  I 
think,  a  unity  of  which  the  writers  themselves  were  unconscious. 
Chronological  criticism  confines  itself  as  strictly  to  facts  as  science 
does,  and  is  not  solicitous  about  results.  Its  office  is  to  observe  what 
lies  on  the  surface  and  to  discover  what  underlies  it,  and,  by  the  two- 
fold process  of  observation  and  discovery,  to  reach  an  equitable  con- 
clusion in  regard  to  the  value  of  both.     We  find  in  all  biographies 


68        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

that  all  writers,  even  the  greatest,  are  influenced  by  their  surround- 
ings, and  by  the  books  they  read ;  that  there  are  just  so  many  ele- 
ments in  their  work,  be  the  same  few  or  many ;  that  their  minds  are 
crude  before  they  are  mature ;  that  intellectual  change  is  not  neces- 
sarily intellectual  growth ;  that  they  recede  as  well  as  advance ;  and, 
Anally,  that  they  do  some  things  much  better  than  others.  We  find, 
in  a  word,  that  the  work  of  every  writer  worthy  of  the  name  contains 
some  quality  which  especially  pertains  to  his  genius  or  his  talent,  and 
which  is  characteristic  of  him  and  of  his  work. 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  was  born  at  Portland,  Maine,  on 
the  27th  of  February,  1807.  His  father,  Mr.  Stephen  Longfellow,  a 
native  of  Gorham,  Maine,  then  a  District  of  Massachusetts,  was  a  de- 
scendant of  William  Longfellow,  of  Newbury,  in  the  same  State,  who 
was  born  in  Yorkshire,  England,  in  1651,  and  emigrated  to  this  coun- 
try in  early  youth.  He  married  Miss  Anne  Sewell,  and  after  a  mar- 
ried life  of  fourteen  years  was  drowned  at  Anticosti,  a  large  desert 
island  in  the  estuary  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Mr.  Stephen  Longfellow, 
a  descendant  in  the  fourth  generation  of  this  gentleman,  was  born  in 
the  year  in  which  the  colonies  declared  their  independence  of  the 
mother  country.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  his  twenty- 
second  year,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  law,  removing  to  Portland  at 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  He  was  a  good  jurist,  as  the 
Massachusetts  and  Maine  Reports  testify,  and  was  a  member  of  the 
national  Congress  when  it  was  an  honor  to  belong  to  that  body.  He 
was  also  the  President  of  the  Maine  Historical  Society.  Such,  in 
brief,  was  the  father  of  our  poet,  whose  mother  was  a  descendant  of 
John  Alden,  who  must  have  been  a  prolific  old  Puritan,  for  his  chil- 
dren's children  have  molded  the  destiny  of  at  least  two  American 
poets — William  CuUen  Bryant  and  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

When  Mr.  Longfellow  shall  have  joined  the  Immortals,  and  his 
biography  shall  be  written  in  full,  students  of  his  poetry  will  know 
more  of  his  childhood  than  his  contemporaries  do  now.  That  he  was 
thoughtfully  cared  for  by  his  parents  is  certain,  and  that  his  edu- 
cation was  an  excellent  one  is  equally  certain,  for  he  entered  Bowdoin 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  69 

College  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  It  was  a  remarkable  class  in  wLicli 
he  found  himself,  for  it  contained,  among  other  men  who  have  arrived 
at  eminence  in  literature,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  George  B.  Cheever, 
and  J.  S.  C.  Abbott ;  and  he  must  have  distinguished  himself,  or  he 
would  not  have  received — as  he  did — the  appointment  of  Professor 
of  Modern  Languages  and  Literatures,  shortly  after  he  was  graduated, 
in  1825.  He  accepted  this  appointment,  with  the  privilege  of  going 
abroad  for  three  years,  in  order  to  qualify  himself  fully  for  his  duties, 
and  the  following  year  saw  him  traveling  on  the  Continent. 

During  his  last  years  at  college,  the  future  professor  of  modern 
literature  contributed  in  a  modest  way  to  the  poetry  of  his  native 
land.  There  was  no  poet  at  the  time  worth  speaking  of,  except  Bry- 
ant ;  and  there  were  no  periodicals,  such  as  we  have  to-day,  to  which 
young  aspirants  could  send  theii*  contributions.  Attempts  had  been 
made  to  establish  them,  but  without  success,  for  they  either  died  after 
a  few  months'  struggle,  or  were  merged  in  others,  which  were  threat- 
ened with  dissolution.  AVe  had  here  in  New  York  a  "  Literary  Ga- 
zette "  (for  which  Griswold  says  Sands  wrote) ;  then  an  "  Atlantic 
Monthly  " ;  and  then  the  "  New  York  Beview  and  Athenaeum  Maga- 
zine," of  which  Bryant  was  the  first  editor.  This  became,  by  the 
process  of  merging,  the  "  New  York  Literary  Gazette  and  American 
Athenaeum,"  which  culminated  in  the  "United  States  Literary  Ga- 
zette." It  was  in  the  pages  of  this  last  publication,  which  was  issued 
simultaneously  in  New  York  and  Boston,  that  the  early  poems  of  the 
young  Bowdoin  student  were  given  to  the  world. 

With  rare  exceptions,  early  poems  are  imitative,  either  of  one  or 
more  poets  whom  their  \vi'iters  have  read  and  admired,  or  of  what  is 
most  marked  in  the  poetry  of  the  period.  A  careful  reading  of  the 
"  United  States  Literary  Gazette  "  would  show,  I  have  no  doubt,  that 
Mr,  Longfellow  was  not  the  only  American  singer,  young  and  old, 
whose  work  bore  the  impress  of  the  author  of  "  Thanatopsis."  It  is 
legible  in  "Autumn,"  "Sunrise  on  the  Hills,"  and  "The  Spirit  of 
Poetry"  (I  am  writing  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  early  poems),  and  it  is 
present,  in  suggestion,  in  "  An  April  Day,"  "  Woods  in  Winter,"  and 


70 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


"  Tlie  Burial  of  the  Minnesink."  Description  of  nature  is  the  motive 
of  these  pieces,  which  are  written  from  books  rather  than  from  ob- 
servation. They  show  an  apt  ear  for  versification,  and  a  sensitive 
temperament,  which  makes  its  own  individuality  felt  in  the  midst  of 
alien  poetic  influences.  Clearly,  a  new  poet  had  appeared  in  the 
"  United  States  Literary  Gazette." 

European  travel  was  not  common  among  Americans  fifty  years 
ago ;  nor  were  the  places  to  be  visited  always  determined  beforehand. 


THE    STUDY. 


A  certain  amount  of  originality  was  allowed  to  the  tourist,  and  if  he 
wrote  a  book  about  what  he  saw  it  was  not  expected  that  he  should 
cram  it  with  information.  He  could  be  desultory,  scholarly,  whimsi- 
cal— he  might  even  be  a  little  dull ;  what  was  wanted  were  his  im- 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  71 

pressions.  The  time  allotted  to  Mr.  Longfellow  by  his  alma  mater 
was  passed  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Germany,  Holland,  and  England. 
We  have  glimpses  of  what  he  saw  in  the  first  three  of  these  countries, 
and,  in  a  measure,  of  his  studies  and  meditations  therein.  He  has  not 
enabled  us  to  follow  his  itinerary  with  any  certainty,  nor  do  we  care 
to,  we  have  been  so  pleasantly  beguiled  by  him. 

Mr.  Longfellow  returned  to  America,  and  to  his  duties  at  Binins- 
wick,  and  took  to  himself  a  wife  in  his  twenty-fourth  year.  I  can  not 
trace  the  order  in  which  his  compositions  were  written,  nor  the  publi- 
cations in  which  they  appeared.  His  first  volume,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  Boston,  in  his  twenty-sixth  year  (1833),  and  is  a  translation 
of  the  "  Coplas  de  Don  Jorge  Manrique,"  a  thin  little  twelvemo  of 
eighty-nine  pages,  ^vhich  opens  with  an  "  Introductory  Essay  on  the 
Moral  and  Devotional  Poetry  of  Spain."  This  scholarly  paper  con- 
tains all  that  the  average  reader  of  forty-five  years  ago  would  care  to 
read  in  regard  to  the  comprehensive  subject  which  it  discussed.  The 
preface  briefly  dismissed  the  original  writer  by  saying  that  he  fol- 
lowed the  profession  of  arms,  as  did  most  Spanish  poets  of  any  emi- 
nence: that  he  fousjht  beneath  the  banner  of  his  father  Roderioro 
Manrique,  Conde  de  Parades,  and  Maestre  de  Santiago,  and  that  he 
died  on  the  field  of  battle  near  Canavete,  in  the  year  1479.  This 
young  soldier  has  rendered  imperishable  the  memory  of  his  father  in 
an  ode  which  is  a  model  of  its  kind,  and  which  ranks  among  the 
world's  great  funeral  hymns.  It  is  admirably  translated  by  Mr.  Long- 
fellow, other  of  whose  Spanish  studies  follow  it  in  the  little  volume  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  in  the  shape  of  seven  moral  and  devotional  son- 
nets, two  of  which  are  by  Lope  de  Vega,  two  by  Francisco  de  Al- 
dana,  two  by  Francisco  de  Medrano,  the  last,  "  The  Brook,"  being  by 
an  anonymous  poet.  The  sonnets  of  Medrano,  "Art  and  Nature" 
and  "  The  Two  Harvests,"  have  disappeared  from  the  later  editions  of 
Mr.  Longfellow's  works,  and  can  very  well  be  spared. 

The  fruits  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  three  years'  residence  in  Europe 
were  given  to  the  world  two  years  later.  If  Bryant  had  been  uncon- 
sciously his  model  in  his  early  poems,  he  can  not  be  said  to  have  had  a 


72 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


model  in  "Outre-Mer."  It  has  reminded  certain  English  critics  of 
Washington  Irving,  I  fail  to  see  in  what  respect.  It  is  more  scholarly 
than  "  The  Sketch  Book,"  and  the  style  is  sweeter  and  mellower  than 

•  obtains  in  that  famous  collec- 
tion of  papers — the  writer  war- 
bling, like  Sidney,  in  poetic 
prose.  France  receives  the 
largest  share  of  his  attention 
and  is  most  lovingly  observed, 
partly  for  its  old-fashioned  pic- 
turesqueness,  but  more,  I  think, 
because  it  happened  to  hit  his 
fancy.  In  the  ninth  chapter  or 
section,  which  glances  at  "  The 
Trouveres,"  we  have  the  first 
French  translations  by  Mr. 
Longfellow.  One  is  a  song  in 
praise  of  "  Spring  "  by  Charles 
d'Orleans,  the  other  is  a  copy 
of  verses  upon  a  sleeping  child 
by  Clotilde  de  Surville.  They 
are  elegantly  translated,  but  we  feel  in  reading  them  that  the  subtile 
aroma  of  their  originals  has  somewhat  escaped.  They  do  not  suggest 
the  fifteenth,  but  the  nineteenth  century. 

"  Outre-Mer "  is  interesting  to  the  student  of  American  literature 
as  an  excellent  example  of  a  kind  of  prose — half  essay  and  half  narra- 
tive— which  ranks  among  the  things  that  were.  It  could  not  flourish 
now,  nor  can  it  flourish  hereafter,  but  it  delighted  a  literate  and  sym- 
pathetic class  of  readers  forty  years  ago,  to  whom  it  was  a  pleasant  re- 
vealment  of  Old  World  places,  customs,  stories,  and  literatures.  It 
was  quietly  humorous,  it  was  prettily  pathetic,  and  it  was  pensive  and 
poetical.  Sentimental  readers  were  attracted  to  the  little  sketch  of 
"  Jacqueline,"  humorous  readers  to  "  Martin  Franc  and  the  Monk  of 
Saint  Anthony  "  and  "  The  Notary  of  Perigueux,"  and  literary  readers 


A    CORNER    OF    THE    STUDY. 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


73 


10 


74        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

to  "  The  Trouveres,"  "  Ancient  Spanish  Ballads,"  and  "  The  Devotional 
Poetry  of  Spain."  (The  last  paper,  by  the  way,  was  a  reprint  of  the 
introduction  to  the  "  Coplas  de  Don  Jorge  Manrique.")  Writing  in 
1878,  I  can  not  say  that  "Outre-Mer"  is  a  remarkable  book;  but, 
recalling  what  American  literature  was  in  1835,  I  see  that  it  was  an 
important  book  then ;  that  it  deserved  all  the  praise  that  it  obtained ; 
that  it  was  thoroughly  representative  of  the  genius  of  its  writer,  and 
that  it  was  indicative  of  his  future  career,  which  is  plainly  mapped 
out  therein. 

The  publication  of  "  Outre-Mer,"  and  his  growing  reputation  as  a 
poet,  pointed  out  Mr.  Longfellow  as  the  successor  of  Mr.  George 
Ticknor,  who,  in  1835,  resigned  his  professorship  of  modem  languages 
and  literature  in  Harvard  College.  He  was  elected  to  fill  the  place 
of  the  erudite  historian  of  Spanish  literature,  and,  resigning  his  chair 
at  Brunswick,  he  went  abroad  a  second  time  in  order  to  complete 
his  studies  in  the  literature  of  Northern  Europe.  He  remained  abroad 
a  little  over  a  year,  passing  the  summer  in  Denmark  and  Sweden, 
and  the  autumn  and  winter  in  Germany.  The  sudden  death  of  his 
wife  at  Rotterdam  arrested  his  travel  and  his  studies  until  the  fol- 
lowing spring  and  summer,  which  were  spent  in  the  Tyrol  and  Swit- 
zerland. He  returned  to  the  United  States  in  November,  1836,  and 
entered  upon  his  duties  at  Cambridge,  where  he  has  ever  since  resided. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  house  at  Cambridge  is  one  of  the  few  American 
houses  to  which  pilgrimages  will  be  made  in  the  future.  It  was  sur- 
rounded with  historic  associations  before  he  entered  it,  and  it  is  now 
surrounded  with  poetic  ones — a  double  halo  encircling  its  time-hon- 
ored walls.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  built  in  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  by  Colonel  John  Vassal,  who  died  in  1747,  and  whose 
ashes  repose* in  the  church-yard  at  Cambridge  under  a  freestone  tablet, 
on  which  are  sculptured  the  words  Vas-sol,  and  the  emblems  a  goblet 
and  sun.  He  left  a  son,  John,  who  lived  into  Revolutionary  times, 
and  was  a  royalist,  as  many  of  the  rich  colonists  were.  The  house 
passed  from  his  hands  (for  a  suitable  consideration,  let  us  hope)  and 
came  into  the  hands  of  the  provincial  government,  who  allotted  it  to 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


75 


General  Washington  as  his  head-quarters  after  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill.  Its  next  occupant  was  a  certain  Mr.  Thomas  Tracy,  of  whom 
tradition  says  that  he  was  very  rich,  and  that  his  servants  drank  his 
costly  wines  from  carved  pitchers.  He  appears  to  have  sent  out  priva- 
teers to  scour  the  seas  in  the  East  and  West"  Indies,  and  to  worry 
the  commerce  of  England  and  Spain ;  though  why  he  should  include 
the  galleons  of  Spain  in  his  freebooting  voyages  is  not  clear.  He 
failed  one  day,  and  the  hundred  guests  who  had  been  accustomed  to 
sit  down  at  the  banquets  of  Vassal  house  were  compelled  to  find 
other  hosts.  Bankrupt  Tracy  was  succeeded  by  Andrew  Craigie, 
apothecary-general  of  the  north- 
ern provincial  army,  who 
amassed  a  fortune  in  that  office, 
which  fortune  took  to  itself 
wings,  though  not  before  it  had 
enlarged  Vassal  house,  and 
built  a  bridge  over  the  Charles 
River  connecting  Cambridge 
with  Boston,  and  still  bearing 
his  name. 

In  the  summer  of   1837  a 
studious   young   gentleman  of 
thirty  might   have   been   seen 
wendiQg    his   way   down    the 
elm-shaded  path  which  led  to  the  Craigie 
house.      He   lifted   the    huge    knocker, 
which  fell  with  a  brazen  clang,  and  in- 
quired   for   Mrs.    Craigie.      The   parlor 
door  was  thrown  open,  and  a  tall,  erect 
figure,  crowned  with  a  turban,  stood  be- 
fore him.     It  was  the  relict  of  Andrew 

Craigie,  whilom  apothecary-general  of  the  dead  and  gone  northern 
provincial  army.  The  young  gentleman  inquired  if  there  was  a  room 
vacant  in  her  house. 


'THE    OLD    CLOCK    ON    THE    STAIRS. 


76        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

"  I  lodge  students  no  longer,"  she  answered  gravely. 

"  But  I  am  not  a  student,"  he  remarked.  "  I  am  a  professor  in 
the  University." 

"  A  professor  ? "  she  inquired,  as  if  she  associated  learning  with 
age. 

"  Professor  Longfellow,"  said  the  would-be  lodger. 

"  Ah  !  that  is  different.     I  will  show  you  what  there  is." 

She  then  proceeded  to  show  him  several  rooms,  saying  as  she 
closed  the  door  of  each,  "  You  can  not  have  that."  At  last  she  opened 
the  door  of  the  southeast  comer  room  of  the  second  story,  and  said 
that  he  could  have  it.  "  This  was  General  Washington's  chamber." 
So  Professor  Longfellow  became  a  resident  of  this  old  historic  house, 
which  had  been  occupied  before  him  by  Edward  Everett  and  Jared 
Sparks,  and  which  was  occupied  with  him  by  Joseph  E.  Worcester, 
the  lexicographer.     Truly,  his  lines  had  fallen  in  pleasant  places. 

Professor  Long-fellow's  collegiate  duties  left  him  leisure  for  literary 
pursuits,  and  he  turned  it  to  advantage  by  writing  a  paper  on  "  Fri- 
thiofs  Saga,"  and  another  on  the  "  Twice-told  Tales  "  of  his  fellow-col- 
legian, Hawthorne,  whose  rare  excellence  he  was  among  the  first  to 
perceive.  These  papers  were  published  in  the  "  North  American  Re- 
view," in  1837.  They  were  followed  during  the  next  year  by  other 
papers ;  among  them  one  on  "  Anglo-Saxon  Literature,"  and  another 
on  "  Paris  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,"  which  were  contributions  to 
the  same  periodical.  If  they  are  good  reading  after  the  lapse  of  forty 
years,  they  must  have  been  better  reading  when  they  were  first  pub- 
lished ;  for,  without  vaunting  ourselves  on  our  knowledge  of  other 
literatures  than  our  own,  it  is  certain  that  our  ancestors  knew  much 
less  about  them  than  we  do ;  and  it  is  equally  certain,  as  we  shall  soon 
see,  that  our  earliest  knowledge  of  German  literature — or,  at  any  rate, 
of  German  poetry — is  largely  due  to  the  writings  of  Mr.  Longfellow. 
His  first  volume  introduced  his  countrymen  to  Spanish  poetry,  as  rep- 
resented by  Don  Jorge  Manrique,  Lope  de  Vega,  Francisco  de  Aldana, 
and  Francisco  de  Medrano.  "  Outre-Mer  "  introduced  them  to  French 
poetry,  in  the  paper  on  "  The  Trouveres,"  and  to  ancient  Spanish  bal- 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


77 


THE    REAR    LAWN,    LOOKING    TOWARD    LONGFELLOW's    HOUSE.       (aLL     THIS     PART     OF     THE     LAWN     IS     COVERED 
WITH    GIGANTIC    ELM-TREES.       THE    HOUSE    IS    NEARLY    HIDDEN    BY    THE    TREES   AND   LILAC   BUSHES.) 


lads  in  the  paper  on  that  subject.  Bryant  had,  perhaps,  preceded  him 
as  a  translator  from  the  Spanish  poets ;  but  his  translations  were  not 
of  a  kind  to  be  popular. 

The  papers  that  I  have  mentioned,  or  some  of  them,  were  written 
in  the  chamber  which  Washington  had  occupied,  as  well  as  a  series  of 
papers  of  which  European  travel  in  Germany  and  Switzerland  and 
European  experience  and  legend  were  the  chief  themes.  Through 
these,  like  a  silken  string  through  a  rosary  of  beads,  ran  a  slight  per- 
sonal narrative  which  may  have  been  real,  and  may  have  been  imagi- 
nary, but  which  was  probably  both.  This  narrative  concerned  itself 
with  the  life-history  of  Paul  Flemming,  a  tender-hearted  and  rather 
shadowy  young  gentleman,  who  had  lost  the  friend  of  his  youth,  and 
who  had  gone  abroad  that  the  sea  might  be  between  him  and  the 
grave.  "  Alas,  between  him  and  his  sorrow  there  could  be  no  sea  but 
that  of  time  ! "    He  wandered  from  place  to  place — noting  what  struck 


78        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

his  sensitive  fancy  and  discoursing  of  men  and  books — student  at  once 
and  pilgrim.  The  hand  that  penned  "Outre-Mer"  was  visible  on 
every  page  of  "Hyperion,"  but  the  hand  had  grown  firmer  in  the 
Craigie  house  than  it  was  at  Brunswick ;  and  the  scholarly  sympathies 
of  the  writer  had  embraced  a  richer  literature  than  that  of  old  Spain 
and  old  France.  Dismissing  the  romantic  element  of  "  Hyperion  "  for 
what  it  is  worth  (and  there  must  have  been  genuine  worth  in  it,  for  it 
was  the  cause  of  its  immediate  popularity),  the  chief  and  permanent 
value  of  the  book  lay  in  the  new  element  which  it  introduced  into 
American  literature — the  element  of  German  fantasy  and  romanticism. 
It  would  have  come  in  time,  no  doubt,  but  to  Mr.  Longfellow  belongs 
the  honor  of  having  hastened  the  time,  and  ushered  in  the  dawn.  He 
was  the  herald  of  German  poetry  in  the  New  World.  The  second 
book  of  "  Hyperion  "  contains  Mr.  Longfellow's  first  published  trans- 
lation from  the  German  poets — the  "  Whither  ? "  of  Miiller  ("  I  heard 
a  brooklet  gushing  ").  The  third  book  contains  the  "  Song  of  the  Bell " 
("Bell,  thou  soundest  merrily!");  "The  Black  Knight"  ("'Twas 
Pentecost,  the  Feast  of  Gladness  ")  ;  "  The  Castle  by  the  Sea  "  ("  Hast 
thou  seen  that  lordly  castle  ? ") ;  "  The  Song  of  the  Silent  Land " 
("Intd  the  Silent  Land");  and  "Beware!"  ("I  know  a  maiden  fair 
to  see").  Besides  these  translations  in  verse,  there  is,  in  the  first 
book,  a  dissertation  or  chapter  on  "  Jean  Paul,  the  Only  One,"  and  in 
the  second  book  a  chapter  on  "  Goethe,"  whom  Mr.  Paul  Flemming, 
by  the  way,  does  not  greatly  admire.  His  friend,  the  Baron,  defends 
the  old  heathen  by  saying  that  he  is  an  artist  and  copies  nature.  "  So 
did  the  artists  who  made  the  bronze  lamps  of  Pompeii.  Would  you 
hang  one  of  those  in  your  hall  ?  To  say  that  a  man  is  an  artist  and 
copies  nature  is  not  enough.  There  are  two  great  schools  of  art,  the 
imitative  and  the  imaginative.  The  latter  is  the  more  noble  and  the 
more  enduring." 

The  dignity  of  the  literary  profession  was  earnestly  maintained  by 
Mr.  Longfellow.  "  I  do  not  see,"  remarked  the  Baron  in  one  of  his 
conversations  with  Paul  Flemming,  "I  do  not  see  why  a  successful 
book  is  not  as  great  an  event  as  a  successful  campaign,  only  different 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


79 


in  kind,  and  not  easily  compared."  The  lives  of  literary  men  are  mel- 
ancholy pictures  of  man's  strength  and  weakness,  and,  on  that  very 
account,  he  thought,  were  profitable  for  encouragement,  consolation, 
and  warning.  "The  lesson  of  such  lives,"  continued  Flemming,  "is 
told  in  a  single  word — wait !  Therefore  should  every  man  wait — 
should  bide  his  time.  Not  in  listless  idleness,  not  in  useless  pastime, 
not  in  querulous  dejection ;  but  in  constant,  steady,  cheerful  endeavors, 
always  willing  and  fulfilling  and  accomplishing  his  task,  that,  when 
the  occasion  comes,  he  may  be  equal  to  the  occasion.  And,  if  it  never 
comes,  what  matters  it  ?  What  matters  it  to  the  world  whether  I  or 
you  or  another  man  did  such  a  deed,  or  wrote  such  a  book,  so  that  the 
deed  and  book  were  well  done  ?     It  is  the  part  of  an  indiscreet  and 


WEST    SIDE    OF    LONGFELLOW's    HOUSE.       (tAKEN    FROM    A    POINT    KEAR    THE    OLD    WILLOW.) 


troublesome  ambition  to  care  too  much  about  fame — about  what  the 
world  says  of  us ;  to  be  always  looking  in  the  faces  of  others  for  ap- 
proval ;  to  be  always  anxious  for  the  effect  of  what  we  do  and  say ;  to 


80       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

be  always  shouting,  to  hear  the  echo  of  our  own  voices."  "  Believe 
me,"  he  concluded,  "  the  talent  of  success  is  nothing  more  than  doing 
what  you  can  do  well,  and  doing  well  whatever  you  do,  without  a 
thought  of  fame.  If  it  come  at  all,  it  will  come  because  it  is  deserved, 
and  not  because  it  is  sought  after.  And,  moreover,  there  will  be  no 
misgivings,  no  disappointment,  no  hasty,  feverish,  exhausting  excite- 
ment." 

If  fame  comes  because  it  is  deserved,  it  certainly  comes  to  some 
men  much  sooner  than  to  others ;  why,  their  contemporaries  and  rivals 
do  not  perceive  as  clearly  as  those  who  come  after  them.  Mr.  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  for  example,  could  never  understand  why  Mr.  Henry 
Wadsworth  Longfellow  was  a  more  successful  writer  than  himself. 
He  might  have  discovered  the  reason,  however,  if  he  had  chosen  to 
look  for  it,  for  it  lay  upon  the  surface  of  the  American  character. 
Our  taste  was  not  profound  forty  years  ago,  nor  is  it  very  profound 
now.  But  then,  as  now,  we  knew  what  we  wanted  in  literature,  and 
we  could  distinguish  what  was  new  from  what  was  old.  There  was 
nothing  new  in  Mr.  Longfellow's  early  poems,  which  were  rather 
promises  than  performances,  but  when  he  began  to  publish  his  "  Voices 
of  thfe  Night "  (in  the  "  Knickerbocker  Magazine,"  I  think),  we  felt 
that  poetry  had  undergone  a  change  into  something  rich  and 
strange. 

We  had  taken  the  measure  (so  to  speak)  of  the  American  poets, 
and  knew  what  to  expect  from  them.  Bryant's  poetry  was  calm, 
meditative,  philosophical ;  Willis's  poetry,  when  not  elegantly  Scrip- 
tural, was  light  and  airy ;  Halleck's  poetry  was  spirited  and  martial ; 
Pierpont's  poetry  was  occasional  and  moral — a  few  epithets  described 
all  our  singers  that  were  worthy  of  the  name.  We  recognized  their 
excellence,  but  it  by  no  means  exhausted  our  admiration  and  capacity 
for  enjoyment.  There  was  room  for  a  new  poet — there  is  always  room 
for  a  new  poet,  though  old  poets  and  old  critics  and  old  readers  are 
sometimes  slow  to  admit  the  fact.  There  were  gardens  which  yielded 
our  elder  singers  no  flowers — gardens  in  which  no  seed  of  theirs  had 
ever  been  sown.     It  remained  for  a  fresh  singer  to  cultivate  them.     I 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  81 

hardly  know  how  to  characterize  the  seed  which  Mr.  Longfellow  be- 
gan to  sow  in  "  The  Voices  of  the  Night."  Romanticism  does  not  de- 
scribe it,  for  there  is  nothing  romantic  in  "  The  Hymn  to  the  Night," 
nor  does  morality  describe  it,  except,  perhaps,  as  it  bourgeoned  in  "  A 
Psalm  of  Life."  The  lesson  of  the  poem  last  named  and  of  "The 
Light  of  Stars  "  was  the  lesson  of  endurance,  and  patience,  and  cheer- 
fulness. It  had  been  taught  by  other  poets,  but  not  as  this  one  taught 
it,  not  in  verse  that  set  itself  to  music  in  the  memory  of  thousands, 
and  in  words  that  were  pictures.  The  young  man  who  wrote  "A 
Psalm  of  Life  "  possessed  the  art  of  saying  remarkable  things,  and  a 
very  rare  art  it  is.  Shakespeare  possessed  it  in  a  supreme  degree,  and 
Pope  and  Gray  in  a  greater  measure  than  greater  poets.  Merciless 
critics  have  pointed  out  flaws  in  the  literary  workmanship  of  "A 
Psalm  of  Life,"  but  its  readers  never  saw  them,  or,  seeing  them,  never 
cared  for  them.  They  found  it  a  hopeful,  helpful  poem.  "  Footsteps 
of  Angels  "  is  to  me  the  most  satisfactory  of  all  these  "  Voices  of  the 
Night."  There  is  an  indescribable  tenderness  in  it,  and  the  vision  of 
the  poet's  dead  wife  gliding  into  his  chamber  with  noiseless  footsteps, 
taking  a  vacant  chair  beside  him,  and  laying  her  hand  in  his,  is  very 
pathetic.  "  The  Beleaguered  City  "  is  a  product  of  poetic  artifice  of 
which  there  are  but  few  examples  in  English  poetry.  It  apj^ears  to 
have  been  compounded  after  a  recipe  which  called  for  equal  parts  of 
outward  fact  and  inward  meaning.  Given  a  material  city,  a  river,  a 
fog,  and  so  on,  the  poet  sets  his  wits  to  work  to  discover  what  coiTe- 
sponds,  or  can  be  made  to  correspond,  with  them  spiritually.  If  he  is 
skillful,  he  constructs  an  ingenious  poem,  of  doubtful  intellectual 
value.  "  Midnight  Mass  for  the  Dying  Year  "  is  a  medley  of  mediaeval 
suggestion  and  Shakespearean  remembrance  which  demands  a  large 
and  imaginative  appreciation.  The  Shakespearean  element  strikes  me 
as  somewhat  out  of  place,  though  it  adds  to  the  impressiveness  and 
effectiveness  as  a  whole.  It  is  a  medley,  however,  as  I  have  said,  and 
it  must  be  judged  by  its  own  fantastic  laws.  Whatever  faults  dis- 
figured "  The  Voices  of  the  Night "  were  lost  sight  of,  or  forgiven  for 
the  sake  of  their  beauties  and  the  admirable  poetic  spirit  which  they 


82 


THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


displayed.      A  healthful  poet  was  singing,  and  his  song  had  many 
tunes. 

"  Hyperion "  and  "  The  Voices  of  the  Night,"  which  were  pub- 
lished in  the  same  year  (1839),  established  the  reputation  of  Mr. 
Longfellow  as  a  graceful  prose  writer,  and  a  poet  who  resembled  no 
poet  of  the  time,  either  in  America  or  England.     His  scholarship  was 


'^ 


THt     WLNO     NORTH    01    TUf    HOLSE. 


evident  in  both,  and  was  not  among  the  least  of  the  charms  which 
they  exercised  over  their  readers. 

Mr.  Bryant  was  the  only  American  poet  of  any  note  who  had  en- 
riched the  literature  of  his  native  land  with  translations.  They 
showed  his  familiarity  with  other  languages,  and  were  well  thought  of 


HENRY   WADS  WOE  TH  LONGFELLOW. 


83 


by  scholars,  but  they  added  nothing  to  his  fame,  for  famous  he  was 
from  the  day  he  published  "  Thanatopsis."  It  was  otherwise  with  the 
translations  of  Mr.  Longfellow,  which  brought  him  many  laurels,  and 
were  in  as  great  demand  as  his  original  poems.  There  were  twenty- 
three  of  them  in  the  little  volume  which  contained  "  The  Voices  of  the 
Night,"  culled  from  "  Hyperion,"  "  Outre-Mer,"  his  review  articles,  not 
forgetting  the  great  ode  of  Don  Jorge  Manrique,  and  they  represented 
six  different  languages.  They  were  well  chosen,  with  the  exception 
of  the  two  versions  from  the  French,  the  subjects  being  in  themselves 
poetical,  and  the  words  in  which  they  were  clothed  characteristic  of 
the  originals.  The  highest  compliment  that  can  be  paid  to  Mr.  Long-, 
fellow  is  to  say  that  they  read  like  original  poems.  The  most  felici- 
tous among  them  are  "  The  Castle  by  the  Sea,"  "  Whither  ? "  "  The  Bird 
and  the  Ship,"  and  the  exquisite  fragment  entitled  "The  Happiest 
Land."  Nearly  forty  years  have  passed  since  they  were  collected  in 
"  The  Voices  of  the  Night,"  and  these  years  have  seen  no  translator 
equal  to  Mr.  Longfellow. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  second  poetical  venture,  "Ballads  and  Other 
Poems,"  determined  his  character  as  a  poet.  It  was  more  mature,  not 
to  say  more  robust,  than  "  The  Voices  of  the  Night,"  and  its  readers 
felt  sure  of  its  author  hereafter,  for  he  felt  sure  of  himself.  The  open- 
ing ballad,  "  The  Skeleton  in  Armor,"  was  the  most  vigorous  poem 
that  he  had  yet  written — a  striking  conception  embodied  in  pictu- 
resque language,  and  in  a  measure  which  had  fallen  into  disuse  for 


THE    OLD    WILLOW. 


84        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

more  than  two  centuries — tlie  measure  of  Drayton's  "  Ballad  of  Agin- 
court."  I  do  not  see  that  a  line  or  a  word  could  be  spared.  There 
w^ere  two  elements  in  this  collection  not  previously  seen  in  Mr.  Long- 
fellow's poetry,  one  being  the  powder  of  beautifying  common  things, 
the  other,  the  often  renewed  experiment  of  hexameter  verse.  What  I 
mean  by  beautifying  common  things  is  the  making  a  village  black- 
smith a  theme,  and  a  legitimate  theme,  too,  for  poetry.  Mr.  Longfel- 
low has  certainly  done  this,  I  do  not  quite  see  how,  and  has  drawn  a 
lesson  likewise,  for  which,  however,  I  care  nothing.  More  purely 
poetical  than  "  The  Village  Blacksmith  "  are  "  Endymion  "  and  "  Maid- 
enhood." The  sentiment  of  the  last  is  very  refined  and  spirited.  "  It 
is  not  always  May,"  "  The  Rainy  Day,"  and  "  God's  Acre,"  each  is 
perfect  of  its  kind,  and  the  kinds  are  very  different.  "  The  Rainy 
Day,"  for  instance,  is  in  the  manner  of  "  The  Beleaguered  City,"  which 
for  once  has  produced  a  good  poem — I  suspect,  because  it  is  a  short 
One.  "  To  the  River  Charles  "  is  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  Mr.  Longfel- 
low's early  Cambridge  life,  and  the  art  of  it  is  perfect. 

The  most  popular  poem  in  Mr.  Longfellow's  second  collection — 
"  Excelsior  " — has  more  moral  than  poetical  value.  The  conception  of 
a  young  man  carrying  a  banner  up  a  mountain  suggests  a  set  scene  in 
a  drama,  and  the  end  of  this  imaginary  person  does  not  affect  us  as  it 
should,  his  attempt  to  excel  being  so  foolhardy.  That  he  would  be 
frozen  to  death  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  The  most  important  of 
the  translations  here  (all  of  w^hich  are  excellent)  was  "  The  Children 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,"  from  the  Swedish  of  Tegner.  It  renewed,  as 
I  have  said,  the  often  baffled  attempt  to  naturalize  hexameters  in  Eng- 
lish poetry — an  attempt  which  Mr.  Longfellow  had  made  four  years 
before,  in  his  paper  on  "  Frithiof's  Saga,"  when  he  translated  the  de- 
scription of  Frithiof's  ancestral  estate  at  Framnas  into  this  measure. 
The  poets  and  poetasters  of  the  Elizabethan  era  tried  in  vain  to  revive 
it.  Gabriel  Harvey,  the  friend  of  Spenser,  projected  a  reform  of  Eng- 
lish poetry — a  reform  which,  if  it  had  succeeded,  would  have  caused 
"  a  general  surceasing  of  rhyme  "  and  a  return  to  certain,  or  uncertain, 
rules  of  quantity.     '^  Spenser  suffered  himself  to  be  drawn  into  this 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  85 

foolish  sclieme,"  says  Professor  Cliild,  "  and  for  a  year  worked  away  at 
hexameters'  and  iambic  trimeters  quite  seriously."  (The  year  in  ques- 
tion, I  take  it,  was  1580.)  Harvey's  project  was  taken  up  with  zeal 
by  a  coterie  over  which  Sidney  and  Dyer  presided ;  but  the  wits,  nota- 
bly Nash,  ridiculed  it,  the  latter  saying  (in  substance)  that  the  hex- 
ameter was  a  gentleman  of  an  ancient  house,  but  that  the  English  lan- 
guage was  too  craggy  for  him  to  run  his  long  plow  in  it.  And  Ascham 
wrote  of  it,  about  fifteen  years  before,  that  it  rather  trotted  and  hob- 
bled than  ran  smoothly  "  in  our  English  tong."  So  thought  not  Mas- 
ter Abraham  Fraunce,  who,  in  1587,  published  a  translation  of  the 
/  "  Aminta  "  of  Tasso,  in  hexameters,  and  in  the  following  year  a  work 
entitled  "Lawier's  Logicke,"  Avherein  he  stowed  away  a  version  of 
Virgil's  Eclogue  of  Alexis,  in  the  same  measure.  Less  than  a  century 
from  this  date,  Edward  Phillips,  the  nephew  of  Milton,  paid  his  re- 
spects and  disrespects  to  the  ancient  and  modern  poets  in  his  "  Thea- 
trum  Poetarum"  (1675) — a  curious  little  book,  which  is  thought  to 
reflect  the  opinions  of  his  illustrious  uncle.  He  sums  up  the  unlucky 
translator  of  Tasso  in  a  few  lines :  "  Abraham  Fraunce,  a  versifier  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  who,  imitating  Latin  measure  in  English  verse, 
wrote  his  '  Ivy  Church '  and  some  other  things  in  hexameter,  some  also 
in  hexameter  and  pentameter ;  nor  was  he  altogether  singular  in  this 
way  of  writing,  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  the  pastoral  interludes  of  his 
'  Arcadia,'  uses  not  only  these,  but  all  other  sorts  of  Latin  measure,  in 
which,  no  wonder,  he  is  followed  by  so  few,  since  they  neither  become 
the  English  nor  any  other  modern  language."  Winstanley  expressed 
the  same  unfavorable  opinion  of  Fraunce's  hexameters  twelve  years 
later  (1687),  cribbing  the  very  words  of  Phillips  for  that  purpose. 

Langbaine,  in  his  "Account  of  the  English  Dramatiqjv  Poets" 
(1691),  adds  four  separate  works,  not  mentioned  by  Winstanley  and 
Phillips  to  the  list  of  Fraunce's  productions  (all  in  hexameters),  and 
records  the  disuse  of  quantitive  experiments  in  English  versification. 
"Notwithstanding  Mr.  Chapman  in  his  translation  of  Homer,  and  Sii* 
Philip  Sidney  in  his  Eclogues,  have  practiced  this  way  of  writing,  yet 
this  way  of  imitating  the  Latin  measures  of  verses,  particularly  the 


86        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

hexameter,  is  now  laid  aside,  and  the  verse  of  ten  syllables,  which  we 
style  heroic  verse,  is  most  in  use."  The  next  attempt  to  revive  hex- 
ameters on  any  scale  was  made  by  that  metrical  experimentalist, 
Southey,  in  his  "Vision  of  Judgment,"  in  1821 — a  piece  of  obsequious 
profanity  which  richly  deserved  the  ridicule  that  Byron  cast  upon  it. 
Such,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  the  history  of  this  alien  measure  in  English 
poetry.  Mr.  Longfellow  thought  well  of  it,  as  we  have  seen,  and  was 
Justified  in  so  thinking  by  the  excellence  of  his  own  practice  therein. 
"  The  Children  of  the  Lord's  Supper  "  is  a  charming  poem,  to  which 
its  antique  setting  is  very  becoming. 

Mr.  Longfellow  made  a  third  voyage  to  Europe  after  publishing 
his  "  Ballads  and  other  Poems,"  and  passed  the  summer  on  the  Rhine. 
He  returned  after  a  few  months,  bringing  with  him  a  number  of 
poems  which  were  written  at  sea,  and  in  which  he  expressed  his  detes- 
tation of  slavery.  "Poems  on  Slavery"  were  published  in  1843,  and 
dedicated  to  W.  E.  Channing,  who  did  not  live  to  read  the  poet's  ad- 
miration of  his  character  and  his  work.  This  dedication,  which  is 
spirited,  contains  a  noble  stanza : 

^  "  Well  done  !    Thy  words  are  great  and  bold ; 

At  times  they  seem  to  me 
Like  Luther's,  in  the  days  of  old, 
Half  battles  for  the  free." 

"The  Slave's  Dream"  is  one  of  the  few  reniemberable  poems  of 
which  the  "  peculiar  institution  "  was  the  inspiration.  It  is  exceed- 
ingly picturesque,  and  its  versification  is  masterly.  The  harmony  of 
sound  and  sense — the  movement  of  the  fourth  stanza  is  very  fine : 

"  And  then  at  furious  speed  he  rode 

Along  the  Niger's  bank, 
His  bridle-reins  were  golden  chains, 

And,  with  a  martial  clank. 
At  each  leap  he  could  feel  his  scabbard  of  steel 

Smiting  his  stallion's  flank." 


/ 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


87 


The  fertility  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  mind  and  the  variety  of  his 
powers  were  manifested  in  his  thirty-sixth  year,  when  he  published 
the  "Poems  on  Slavery,"  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  and  "The 
Spanish  Student " — a  dramatic  poem,  the  actors  in  which  were  the 
antipodes  of  the  dusky  figures  which  preceded  them.  Judged  by  the 
laws  of  its  construction,  and  by  the  intention  of  its  creator,  "The 


VIEW    FROM    THE    UEAIl    PIAZZA.       (TUK    OI'EN    GATE-WAY    LEADS    TO    THE  LAWN,  A  BKOAD  AND  SPLENDID  STRETCH 

RUNNING    TOWARD   THE    NORTH.) 


Spanish  Student "  is  a  beautiful  production.  It  should  be  read  for 
what  it  is — a  poem,  and  without  the  slightest  thought  of  the  stage, 
.which  was  not  in  the  mind  of  the  author  when  he  wrote  it.  So  read, 
it  will  be  found  radiant  with  poetry,  not  of  a  passionate  or  profound 
kind,  which  would  be  out  of  place ;  for  the  plot  is  in  no  sense  a  tragic 


88       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

one,  but  of  a  kind  that  suggests  the  higher  walks  of  serious  poetic 
comedy.  The  characters  of  the  different  actors  in  this  little  closet 
play  are  sketched  with  sufficient  distinctness,  and  the  conversation, 
which  is  lively  and  bustling,  is  suited  to  the  speakers  and  their  station 
in  life.  The  gypsy  dancing  girl,  Preciosa,  is  a  lovely  creation  of  the 
poet's  fancy. 

In  1843  Mr.  Longfellow  was  married  for  the  second  time,  and  be- 
came the  possessor  of  the  Craigie  house.  Three  years  later  he  pub- 
lished "  The  Belfry  of  Bruges  and  other  Poems."  Traces  of  his  early 
manner,  as  unsuccessfully  manifested  in  "  The  Beleaguered  City,"  ap- 
pear in  "  Carillon,"  the  prologue  to  the  volume,  and  in  "  The  Arrow 
and  the  Song,"  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  perfect  of  all  his  smaller 
pieces.  "  The  Belfry  of  Bruges  "  is  a  picturesque  description  of  that 
quaint  old  city,  as  seen  from  the  belfry  tower  in  the  market-place  one 
summer  morning,  and  an  imaginative  remembrance  of  its  past  historj^, 
which  passes  like  a  pageant  before  the  eyes  of  the  poet.  Eveiything 
is  clearly  conceived  and  in  orderly  succession,  and  in  no  poem  that  he 
had  previously  written  had  the  hand  of  the  artist  been  so  firm. 
"  Nuremberg,"  a  companion-piece  in  the  same  measure,  is  distinguished 
by  the  same  precision  of  touch  and  the  same  broad  excellence.  There 
is  an  indescribable  charm,  a  grace  allied  to  melancholy,  in  "  A  Gleam 
of  Sunshine,"  which  is  one  of  the  few  poems  that  refuse  to  be  for- 
gotten. "The  Arsenal  at  Springfield "  is  in  a  certain  sense  didac- 
tic, I  suppose,  but  I  do  not  quite  see  how  it  could  be  otherwise, 
and  be  a  poem  at  all.  A  poet  should  be  a  poet  first,  but  he 
should  also  be  a  man,  and  a  man  who  concerns  himself  with  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  his  fellow-creatures.  There  was  a  great  lesson 
in  the  burnished  arms  at  Springfield,  and  a  lesser  poet  than  Mr. 
Longfellow  would  not  have  guessed  it. 


"  Were  half  the  power  that  fills  the  world  with  terror, 

Were  half  the  wealth  bestowed  on  camps  and  courts. 
Given  to  redeem  the  human  mind  from  error, 
There  were  no  need  of  arsenals  and  forts  : 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  89 

**  The  warrior's  name  would  be  a  name  abhorred. 
And  every  nation  that  should  lift  again 
Its  hand  against  a  brother,  on  its  forehead 

Should  wear  forevermore  the  curse  of  Cain  !  " 


Nothing  could  be  more  unlike  than  "  The  Norman  Baron,"  a  study 
of  the  mediaeval  age,  and  "  Rain  in  Summer,"  a  fresh  and  off-hand  de- 
scription of  a  country  shower.  My  feeling  about  the  last  is  that  it 
would  have  been  better  if  it  had  been  cast  in  a  regular  stanza  instead 
of  its  present  form,  which  strikes  me  as  being  a  whimsical  one,  and 
that  it  is  not  improved  by  the  introduction,  at  the  close,  of  a  higher 
element  than  that  of  simple  description.     The  last  three  sections  are 


VIEW    FROM    THE    PIAZZA.       (LOOKING    SOUTH.) 


poetical  and  imaginative,  but  it  seems  to  me  they  disturb  the  harmony 
and  unity  of  the  poem. 

Not  many  English-writing  poets,  good  fathers  as  most  of  them 
were,  have  addressed  poems  to  their  children.  Ben  Jonson  wrote 
some  lines  about  his  first  daughter,  who  died  in  infancy.  Coleridge 
sang  a  serious  cradle-song  over  his  son  Hartley,  in  "Frost  at  Mid- 
night." Shelley  bewailed  the  early  death  of  his  son  William ;  and 
Leigh  Hunt,  most  tuneful  of  all,  celebrated  two  of  his  children  in  two 
characteristic  poems,  the  most  natural  of  which  he  inscribed  to  his  son 
John,  "  A  Nursery  Song  for  a  Four- Year-Old  Romp."     These,  as  I  re- 

12 


90        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

member,  are  some  of  tlie  best-known  English  poets,  to  whom  cMld- 
hood  was  a  source  of  inspiration.  Mr.  Longfellow  distanced  all  of 
them,  and  apparently  without  an  effort,  in  the  volume  under  consid- 
eration. His  poem  "  To  my  Child  "  has  no  superior  of  its  kind  in  the 
language.  We  have  a  glimpse  of  the  poet's  house  for  the  first  time  in 
verse,  and  of  the  chamber  in  which  he  wrote  so  many  of  his  poems, 
which  had  now  become  the  child's  nursery.  Its  chimney  was  adorned 
with  painted  tiles,  among  which  he  enumerates : 

"  The  lady  with  the  gay  macaw, 
The  dancing-girl,  the  grave  bashaw 

With  bearded  lip  and  chin  ; 
And,  leaning  idly  o'er  his  gate, 
Beneath  the  imperial  fan  of  state 

The  Chinese  mandarin." 

The  child  shakes  his  coral  rattle  with  its  silver  bells,  and  is  content 
for  the  moment  with  its  merry  tune.  The  poet  listens  to  other  bells  than 
these,  and  they  tell  him  that  the  coral  w^as  growing  thousands  of  years 
in  the  Indian  seas,  and  that  the  bells  once  reposed  as  shapeless  ore  in 
darksome  mines,  beneath  the  base  of  Chimborazo  or  the  overhanging 
pines  of  Potosi. 

"  And  thus  for  thee,  0  little  child. 

Through  many  a  danger  and  escape,  ' 

The  tall  ships  passed  the  stormy  cape  ; 

For  thee  in  foreign  lands  remote. 

Beneath  a  burning,  tropic  clime. 

The  Indian  peasant,  chasing  the  wild  goat, 

Himself  as  swift  and  wild, 

In  falling,  clutched  the  frail  arbute, 

The  fibers  of  whose  shallow  root. 

Uplifted  from  the  soil,  betrayed 

The  silver  veins  beneath  it  laid 

The  buried  treasures  of  the  miser  Time." 

He  turns  from  the  child  to  the  memory  of  one  who  formerly  dwelt 
within  the  walls  of  his  historic  mansion  : 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  91 

*'  Up  and  down  these  echoing  stairs 
Heavy  with  the  weight  of  cares, 
Sounded  his  majestic  tread  : 
Yes,  within  this  very  room 
Sat  he  in  those  hours  of  gloom. 
Weary  both  in  heart  and  head. " 

These  grave  thoughts  are  succeeded  by  pictures  of  the  child  at  play, 
now  in  the  orchard  and  now  in  the  garden- walks,  where  his  little  car- 
riage-wheels efface  whole  villages  of  sand-roofed  tents  that  rise  above 
the  secret  homes  of  nomadic  tribes  of  ants.  But,  tired  already,  he 
comes  back  to  parley  with  repose,  and,  seated  with  his  father  on  a 
rustic  seat  in  an  old  apple-tree,  they  see  the  waters  of  the  river,  and  a 
sailless  vessel  dropping  down  the  stream : 

"  And  like  it,  to  a  sea  as  wide  and  deep, 
Thou  driftest  gently  down  the  tides  of  sleep." 

The  poet  speculates  gravely  on  the  future  of  his  child,  and  bids  him 
remember  that  if  his  fate  is  an  untoward  one,  even  in  the  perilous 
hour, 

"  When  most  afflicted  and  oppressed 
From  labor  there  shall  come  forth  rest. " 

In  this  poem,  and  in  "  The  Occultation  of  Orion,"  Mr.  Longfellow  has 
reached  a  table-land  of  imagination  not  hitherto  attained  by  his  Muse. 
"  The  Bridge  "  is  a  revealment  of  his  personality,  and  a  phase  of  his 
genius  which  has  never  ceased  to  charm  the  majority  of  his  readers. 
The  train  of  thought  which  it  suggests  is  not  new,  but  what  thought 
that  embraces  mankind  is  new  ?  Enough  that  it  is  natural,  and  sym- 
pathetic, and  tender.  The  lines  to  "  The  Driving  Cloud  "  are  an  ad- 
mirable specimen  of  hexameters,  and  a  valuable  addition  to  our  scanty 
store  of  aboriginal  poetry — the  forerunner  of  an  immortal  contribution 
not  yet  transmuted  into  verse. 

Under  the  head  of  "  Songs  "  we  have  eight  poems,  two  of  which 
are  modeled  after  a  fashion  that  Mr.  Longfellow  had  succeeded  in 


92  THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

making  his  own.  1  refer  to  "  Sea-weed "  and  "  The  Arrow  and  tl^e 
Song,"  two  charming  fantasies  in  which  the  doctrine  of  poetic  corre- 
spondence (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  phrase)  works  out  a  triumphant 
excuse  for  its  being.  "  The  Day  is  Done  "  belongs  to  a  class  of  poems 
which  depend  for  their  success  upon  the  human  element  they  contain, 
or  suggest,  and  to  which  they  appeal.  "  The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs  " 
is  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean,  and  as  good  a  one  as  can  be  found 
in  the  writings  of  any  modern  poet.  The  humanities  (to  adapt  a 
phrase)  were  never  long  absent  from  Mr.  Longfellow's  thoughts.  We 
feel  their  presence  in  "  The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,"  in  "  The  Bridge," 
and  in  the  unryhmed  stanzas  "  To  an  Old  Danish  Song-book  " : 

"  Once  in  Elsinore, 
At  the  court  of  old  King  Hamlet, 
Yorick  and  his  boon  comp.anions 
Sang  these  ditties. 

*'  Once  Prince  Frederick's  guard 
Sang  them  in  their  smoky  barracks  : 
-\  Suddenly  the  English  cannon 

Joined  the  chorus  ! " 

This  volume  introduced  Mr.  Longfellow  in  a  species  of  composition  in 
which  we  have  not  hitherto  seen  him — the  sonnet,  of  which  there  are 
three  specimens  here,  neither  of  the  strictest  Italian  form,  the  best, 
perhaps,  being  the  one  on  "Dante,"  of  whom,  by  the  way,  we  had 
three  translations,  all  from  the  " Purgatorio,"  in  the  "Voices  of  the 
Night."  One  feature  of  his  poetry,  and  not  its  strongest  (rtie  judice), 
was  the  first  which  his  imitators  seized  upon  and  sought  to  transfer  to 
their  own  rhymes.  I  allude  to  his  habit  of  comparing  one  thing  with 
another  thing — an  outward  fact  with  an  inward  experience,  or  vice 
versa.     An  example  or  two  will  illustrate  what  I  mean : 

*'  Before  him,  like  a  blood-red  flag 
The  bright  flamingoes  flew." 


HENRY   WAD8W0RTH  LONGFELLOW.  93 

**  And  it  passed,  like  a  glorious  roll  of  drums. 
Through  the  triumph  of  his  dream." 

*'  Through  the  closed  blinds  the  golden  sun 
Poured  in  a  dusky  beam. 
Like  the  celestial  ladder  seen 
By  Jacob  in  his  dream." 

"  And  the  night  shall  be  filled  with  music. 
And  the  cares,  that  infest  the  day. 
Shall  fold  their  tents,  like  the  Arabs, 
And  as  silently  steal  away." 

It  was  the  fancy  of  Mr.  Longfellow,  and  not  his  imagination,  which 
commended  his  poetry  to  om-  poetasters  of  both  sexes,  and  what  was 
excellent  in  him — and  is  excellent  in  itself,  when  restrained  within  due 
bounds — became  absurd  in  them,  it  was  carried  to  such  excesses. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  next  volume  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  gift  of 
Hawthorne,  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  its  theme.  It  is  stated 
briefly  in  the  first  volume  of  his  "  American  Note-books,"  in  a  cluster 
of  memoranda  ^\Titten  between  October  24,  1838,  and  January  4, 1839. 

Voila :  "  H.  L.  C heard  from  a  French  Canadian  a  story  of  a 

young  couple  in  Acadie.  On  their  marriage  day,  all  the  men  of  the 
province  were  summoned  to  assemble  in  the  church  to  hear  a  procla- 
mation. When  assembled,  they  were  all  seized  and  shipped  off  to  be 
distributed  through  New  England,  among  them  the  new  bridegroom. 
His  bride  set  oft*  in  search  of  him,  wandered  about  New  England  all 
her  lifetime,  and  at  last,  when  she  was  old,  she  found  her  bridegroom 
on  his  death-bed.  The  shock  was  so  great  that  it  killed  her  likemse." 
This  forcible  deportation  of  a  whole  people  occurred  in  1755,  when 
the  French,  to  the  extent  of  eighteen  thousand  souls,  were  seized  by 
the  English,  in  the  manner  stated.  Histoiy,  which  excuses  so  much, 
has  perhaps  excused  the  act ;  but  humanity  never  can.  It  is  as  inde- 
fensible as  the  Inquisition. 

"Evangeline,"  which  was  published  in  1847,  disputed  the  palm 
with  "The  Princess,"  which  was  published  in  the  same  year.     The 


94       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

two  volumes  are  so  unlike  that  no  comparison  can,  or  should,  be  made 
between  them.  Each  shows  its  writer  at  his  best  as  a  story-teller,  and 
if  the  mediaeval  medley  sui^asses  the  modem  pastoral  in  richness  of 
coloring,  it  is  surpassed,  in  turn,  by  the  tender  human  interest  of  the 
latter.  I  should  no  more  think  of  telling  the  story  of  Evangeline 
than  I  should  think  of  telling  the  story  of  Kuth.  It  is  what  the  critics 
had  been  so  long  clamoring  for — an  American  poem — and  it  is  narrated 
with  commendable  simplicity.  Poetry,  as  poetry,  is  kept  in  the  back- 
ground ;  the  descriptions,  even  when  they  appear  exuberant,  are  sub- 
ordinated to  the  main  purpose  of  the  poem,  out  of  which  they  rise 
naturally ;  the  characters  are  clearly  drawn,  and  the  landscapes  through 
which  they  move  are  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  New  World. 
It  is  the  French  village  of  Grand-Pre  which  we  behold ;  it  is  the  colo- 
nial Louisiana  and  the  remote  West — not  the  fairy -land  which  Camp- 
bell imagined  for  himself  when  he  wrote  "Gertrude  of  Wyoming," 
with  its  shepherd  swains  tending  their  flocks  on  green  declivities  and 
skimming  the  lake  with  light  canoes,  while  lovely  maidens  danced  in 
brown  forests  to  the  music  of  timbrels  !  Evangeline,  loving,  patient, 
sorrowful  wanderer,  has  taken  a  permanent  place,  I  think,  among  the 
heroines  of  English  song ;  but,  whether  the  picturesque  hexameters  in 
which  her  pathetic  story  is  told  w^ll  hereafter  rank  among  the  stand- 
ard measures  of  the  language,  can  only  be  conjectured.  That  the 
poets  have  fancied  them  is  certain,  for  the  year  after  the  publication 
of  "  Evangeline  "  saw  Clough  writing  them  in  "  The  Bothie  of  Tober- 
na-Vuolich,"  and  ten  years  later  saw  Kingsley  writing  them  in  his 
"  Andromeda."  Matthew  Arnold  maintains  that  the  hexameter  is  the 
only  proper  measure  in  which  to  translate  Homer;  and  already  two 
versions  of  the  Iliad  in  this  measure  have  been  made,  one  by  Herschel 
(1866),  and  another  by  Cochrane  (1867). 

Two  years  before  the  publication  of  "Evangeline"  (1845),  Mr. 
Longfellow  conferred  a  scholarly  obligation  upon  the  admirers  of  for- 
eign poetry  by  editing  "  The  Poets  of  Europe,"  a  closely-printed  oc- 
tavo of  nearly  eight  hundred  pages,  containing  specimens  of  European 
poets  in  ten  diiferent  languages,  representing  the  labors  of  upward  of 


,"ti?  >:  :,i.^^k^'<Aii(ii2m^iiM!!:miiisi£:aMmaihiit: 


HENRY   WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW. 


95 


one  hundred  translators,  including  himself.  Four  years  later  (1849), 
he  published  a  tale,  entitled  "  Kavanagh."  It  has  no  plot  to  speak  of, 
but  its  sketches  of  character  are  bright  and  amusing,  and  its  glimpses 
of  New  England  village  life  are  pleasantly  authentic.  One  of  the 
personages  of  the  book  is  more  than  a  being  of  the  mind.  I  refer  to 
Mr.  Hathaway,  whom  all  our  authors  have  met,  and  whose  nonsense 
about  a  national  literature  they  have  listened  to  with  as  much  patience 
as  they  were  blessed  with.  He  waits  upon  Mr.  Churchill  (the  read- 
ers of  "  Kavanagh  "  will  remember),  and  that  gentle  genius  ventures 
to  differ  with  him  in  language  which,  I  am  sure,  expresses  the  opinion 
of  his  scholarly  creator.     "Nationality  is  a  good  thing  to  a  certain 


THK    WESTERN    EXTKANCE.       (FROM     THE     PIAZZA     THERE     IS     A    VIEW    OF   THE    RIVER    CHARLES,    BRIGHTON, 

AND    THE    DISTANT    HILLS.) 


extent ;  but  universality  is  better.  All  that  is  best  in  the  great  poets 
of  all  countries  is  not  what  is  national  in  them,  but  what  is  universal. 
Their  roots  are  in  their  native  soil ;  but  their  branches  wave  in  the 
unpatriotic  air  that  speaks  the  same  language  unto  all  men,  and  their 
leaves  shine  with  the  illimitable  light  that  pervades  all  lands.     Let  us 


96       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

throw  all  tlie  windows  open;  let  us  admit  the  light  and  air  on  all 
sides,  that  we  may  look  toward  the  four  corners  of  the  heavens,  and 
not  always  in  the  same  direction."  The  curious  thing  about  this 
national  literature  is  (Mr.  Churchill  might  have  added),  that  few 
nations  really  know  when  they  possess  it,  their  knowledge  depending 
upon  the  prior  discovery  of  alien  nations.  If  the  English  had  not  so 
settled  it,  would  we  ever  have  found  out  for  ourselves  what  great 
national  poets  we  have  in  Mr.  Walt  Whitman  and  Mr.  Joaquin  Miller  ? 
Do  our  critical  cousins  know  what  an  inspired  singer  they  have  in 
Poet  Close? 

What  impress  me  in  reading  Mr.  Longfellow's  poetry  are  the 
extent  of  his  poetic  sympathies  and  the  apparent  ease  with  which  he 
passes  from  one  class  of  subjects  to  another.  His  instincts  are  sure  in 
his  choice  of  all  his  subjects,  and  his  perception  of  their  poetic  ca- 
pacities is  keen.  They  translate  themselves  readily  into  his  mind,  and 
he  clothes  them  in  their  singing-robes  when  the  spirit  moves  him. 
The  five  years  which  included  the  publication  of  the  next  three 
volumes  of  his  poetical  writings — "The  Seaside  and  the  Fireside" 
(1850),  "The  Golden  Legend"  (1851),  and  "The  Song  of  Hiawatha" 
(1855) — added  largely  to  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  varied  attain- 
ments, to  whom  poetry  was  an  art  in  which  he  was  perpetually  dis- 
covering new  possibilities.  There  are  twenty -three  poems  in  "The 
Seaside  and  the  Fireside  "  (including  the  dedication  and  the  transla- 
tions), no  two  of  which  are  alike,  though  they  all  disclose  the  skillful 
hand  by  which  they  were  wrought.  The  most  important  of  them,  as 
a  work  of  art,  is  the  best  poem,  of  which  Schiller's  "  Song  of  the 
Bell "  was  the  model — "  The  Building  of  the  Ship."  I  may  be  singu- 
lar in  my  opinion,  but  my  opinion  is  that  it  is  a  better  poem  than 
Schiller's,  in  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  interest  myself,  possibly 
because  all  the  English  translations  of  it  are  so  indifferent.  Its  theme 
is  better  adapted  to  poetic  treatment  than  Schiller's,  partly,  no  doubt, 
because  it  is  more  tangible  to  the  imagination,  and  capable,  therefore, 
of  more  definite  presentation  before  the  eye  of  the  mind ;  but  largely, 
I  think,  because  its  associations  are  not  attached  to  so  many  memories 


.*>.SV»*^'i.i4^SS£t.. 


HENRY    WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  97 

as  cluster  about  the  ringing  of  a  bell.     Its  unity  is  in  its  seK-concen- 
tration. 

"  Tlie  Golden  Legend  "  transports  us  back  to  the  Middle  Ages,  of 
which  we  have  had  transitory  gleams  in  the  earlier  writings  of  Mr. 
Longfellow.  The  poetic  atmosphere  of  that  remote  period  envelops 
a  lovely  story,  which  turns,  like  that  of  "  Evangeline,"  upon  the  love 
and  devotion  of  woman,  that  in  this  instance  is  happily  rewarded. 

The  figure  of  Elsie,  the  peasant  girl,  who  determines  to  sacrifice 
her  life  to  restore  her  prince  to  happiness,  is  worthy  of  an  exalted 
place  in  any  poet's  dream  of  fair  women.  The  charm  of  the  poem, 
apart  from  its  poetry,  is  the  thorough  and  easy  scholarship  of  the 
writer,  who  contrives  to  conceal  the  evidences  of  his  reading — an  art 
which  few  poets  have  possessed  in  an  equal  degree,  and  which  Moore 
did  not  possess  at  all.  If  the  opinion  of  an  unlettered  man  is  worth 
anything,  the  miracle-play  of  "  The  Nativity  "  is  conceived  in  the  very 
spirit  of  those  archaic  entertainments  which  cleric  pens  devised  for  the 
edification  of  the  laity.  It  had  no  prototype,  so  far  as  I  know,  in 
modem  English  poetry,  and  has  had  no  successor  at  all  worthy  of  it, 
except  Mr.  Swinburne's  "Masque  of  Queen  Bersabe."  Mr.  Kuskin 
reflected,  I  think,  the  judgment  of  most  scholarly  readers  of  this 
poem  when  he  wrote  in  his  "  Modem  Painters  "  that  its  author  had 
entered  more  closely  into  the  temper  of  the  monk,  for  good  and  for 
evil,  than  ever  yet  theological  writer  or  historian,  though  they  may 
have  given  their  life's  labor  to  the  analysis. 

Poets  are  distinguished  from  writers  of  verse  not  only  by  superi- 
ority of  genius,  but  by  superiority  of  knowledge.  The  versifier  gropes 
about  in  search  of  poetical  subjects,  while  the  poet  goes  to  them  in- 
stinctively, and  often  finds  them  when  others  have  sought  for  them  in 
vain.  That  there  was  a  poetic  element  in  the  North  American  Indian 
several  American  poets  had  believed,  and,  so  believing,  had  striven  to 
quicken  their  verse  with  its  creative  energies.  Sands  and  Eastburn 
wrote  together  the  ponderous  poem  of  "  Yamoyden  "  ;  Hoifman  wrote 
a  "Vigil  of  Faith";  Seba  Smith  a  "Powhattan";  Street  a  "Fronte- 
nac  " ;  and  others,  I  dare  say,  other  aboriginal  poems,  whose  names  I 

13 


98        THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS 

have  forgotten.  They  are  unanimous  in  one  thing — they  all  failed  to 
interest  their  readers.  The  cause  of  this  was  not  far  to  seek,  we  can 
see,  since  success  has  been  achieved,  but  it  demanded  a  vision  which 
was  not  theirs,  and  which,  it  seemed,  only  one  American  poet  had. 
He  saw  that  the  Indian  himself,  as  he  figures  in  our  history,  was  not 
capable  of  being  made  a  poetic  hero,  but  he  saw  that  there  might  be  a 
poetic  side  to  him,  and  that  it  existed  in  his  legends,  if  he  had  any. 
That  he  had  many,  and  that  they  were  remarkable  for  a  certain  primi- 
tive imagination,  was  well  known.  They  were  brought  to  light  by 
the  late  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft,  who  heard  of  their  existence  among  the 
Odjibwa  Nation,  inhabiting  the  region  about  Lake  Superior  in  1822. 
Specimens  of  these  aboriginal  fictions  were  published  by  Mr. 
Schoolcraft  in  his  "  Travels  in  the  Central  Portions  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley"  (1825),  and  his  "Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  Itasca  Lake" 
(1834),  but  they  were  not  given  to  the  world  in  their  entirety  until 
1839  in  his  "Algic  Researches."  They  were  as  good  as  manuscript 
for  the  next  sixteen  years,  though  one  American  poet  had  mastered 
them  thoroughly.  This  was  Mr.  Longfellow,  who,  in  1855,  turned 
this  Indian  Edda,  as  he  happily  called  it,  into  "  The  Song  of  Hiawa- 
tha." The  great  and  immediate  success  of  this  poem  and  the  increase 
of  reputation  which  it  brought  its  author  recalled  the  early  years  of 
the  present  century,  when  Scott  and  Byron  were  sure  of  thousands  of 
readers  whenever  it  pleased  them  to  write  a  metrical  romance.  It  was 
eagerly  read  by  all  classes,  who  suddenly  found  themselves  interested 
in  the  era  of  flint  arrow-heads,  earthen  pots,  and  skin  clothes,  and  in 
its  elemental  inhabitants,  who,  dead  centuries  ago,  if  they  ever  existed, 
were  now  living  the  everlasting  life  of  poetry.  Everybody  read  "  The 
Song  of  Hiawatha,"  which  passed  through  many  editions,  here  and  in 
England,  and  elsewhere  in  the  Old  World  in  other  languages.  Its  in- 
tellectual value  was  universally  admitted,  but  its  form  was  questioned, 
as  all  new  forms  are  sure  to  be.  For  the  form  was  new  to  most  read- 
ers, though  not  to  scholars  in  the  literatures  of  Northern  Europe.  It 
is  original  with  Mr.  Longfellow,  his  friends  declared.  No,  his  enemies 
answered,  he  has  borrowed  it  from  the  Finnish  epic,  "  The  Kalewala." 


HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW.  99 

The  quarrel,  which  was  acrimonious,  interested  the  critics,  who  are 
often  entertained  by  trifles,  but  nobody  else  cared  a  button  about  it. 
The  temporary  novelty  of  its  form  led  to  innumerable  parodies,  but  to 
nothing  serious,  that  I  remember ;  which  I  take  to  be  a  silent  verdict 
against  its  permanency  in  English  versification. 

Mr.  Longfellow  added,  three  years  later,  to  the  laurels  he  had  won 
by  "  Evangeline,"  by  a  second  narrative  poem  in  hexameters — "  The 
Courtship  of  Miles  Standish."  It  lacks  the  pathetic  interest  which  is 
the  charm  of  the  earlier  poem,  but  it  possesses  the  same  merit  of  pictu- 
resqueness,  and  a  firmer  power  of  delineating  character.  Priscilla  is  a 
very  vital  little  Puritan  maiden,  who  sees  no  impropriety  in  asking 
the  man  she  loves  why  he  does  not  speak  for  himself,  and  not  for 
Miles  Standish,  who  might  find  time  to  attend  to  his  own  wooing. 
The  Puritan  atmosphere  here  is  as  perfect  of  its  kind  as  the  Catholic 
atmosphere  of  "  Evangeline,"  and  is  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the 
grim  old  days  in  which  the  story  is  laid.  The  versification  of  the 
poem  is  more  vigorous  than  that  of  the  sister  poem,  the  hexameters 
having  a  sort  of  martial  movement  about  them. 

I  do  not  see  that  the  poetry  of  Mr.  Longfellow  has  changed  much 
in  the  last  twenty  years,  except  that  it  has  become  graver  in  its  tone 
and  more  seiious  in  its  purpose.  Its  technical  excellence  has  steadily 
increased.  He  has  more  than  held  his  own  against  all  English- writing 
poets,  and  in  no  walk  of  poetry  so  positively  as  that  of  telling  a  story. 
In  an  age  of  story-tellers  he  stands  at  their  head,  not  only  in  the  narra- 
tive poems  I  have  mentioned,  but  in  the  lesser  stories  included  in  his 
"  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  for  which  he  has  laid  all  the  literatures  of 
the  world  under  contribution.  He  preceded  by  several  years  the 
voluminous  poet  of  "  The  Earthly  Paradise,"  who  has  no  fitting  sense 
of  the  value  of  time,  and  no  suspicion  that  there  may  be  too  much  of 
a  good  thing.  I  would  rather  praise  his  long  narratives  in  verse  than 
read  them,  which  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  I  prefer  short 
poems  to  long  ones.  About  the  only  piece  of  criticism  of  Poe's  to 
which  I  can  assent  without  qualification  is,  that  long  poems  are  mis- 
takes.    A  poem  proper  should  produce  a  unity  of  impression  which 


100     THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS 

can  only  be  obtained  within  a  reasonable  time ;  it  should  never  weary 
its  readers  into  closing  the  book.  This  is  very  destructive  criticism, 
but  I  am  inclined  to  think  there  is  something  in  it,  though  it  is  not  re- 
spectful to  the  memory  of  Milton.  Mr.  Longfellow's  stories  can  all  be 
read  at  a  single  sitting,  which  insures  the  unity  of  impression  which 
they  ought  to  create  and  which  they  do  create  beyond  any  modern 


^^^^^^385"*=^ 


^^S^-^  *'^^^ .  "C^^^y^^^f'l^^f^^^'^ 


VIEW   ACROSS    THE   LAWN,    NORTH-WEST   OF   THE   HOUSE. 


poems  with  which  I  am  acquainted.  Mr.  Longfellow  had  always 
shown  great  taste  in  the  selection  of  his  subjects,  and  «it  was  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  that  he  would  delight  his  admirers  in  his  "  Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn."  Every  tale  in  that  collection  was  worth  a  new  version, 
even  "  The  Falcon  of  Sir  Federigo,"  which  the  young  Barry  Cornwall 
sang  when  Mr.  Longfellow  was  a  school-boy. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  method  of  telling  a  story  will  compare  favorably, 
I  think,  with  any  of  the  recognized  masters  of  English  narrative  verse, 
from  the  days  of  Chaucer  down.  His  heroics  are  as  easy  as  those  of 
Hunt  and  Keats,  whose  mannerisms  and  affectations  he  has  avoided. 
They  remind  me  of  the  heroics  of  no  other  English  or  American  poet, 
and,  unlike  some  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  early  poems,  are  without  any 


HENRY   WAD8W0RTH  LONGFELLOW.  101 

manner  of  their  own.     They  as  certainly  attain  a  pure  poetic  style  as 
the  prose  of  Hawthorne  attains  a  pure  prose  style. 

The  most  distinctive  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  poems  are  probably  those 
which  he  entitles  "  Birds  of  Passage,"  and  which  he  has  from  time  to 
time  published  as  portions  of  separate  volumes.  They  were  inspired 
by  many  literatures,  and  are  in  many  measures,  among  which,  how- 
ever, that  of  "  The  Song  of  Hiawatha  "  does  not  reappear,  though  the 
hexameter  does,  and  as  recently  as  in  his  last  collection  ("  Keramos, 
and  other  Poems "),  published  in  the  present  year.  What  first  im- 
presses me,  in  reading  them,  is  the  multifarious  reading  of  their  writer, 
who  seems  to  have  no  favorite  authors,  but  to  read  for  the  delight  that 
he  takes  in  letters.  He  has  the  art  of  finding  unwritten  poems  in  the 
most  out-of-the-way  books,  and  in  every-day  occurrences.  A  great 
man  dies — the  Duke  of  Wellington,  for  example — and  he  hymns  his 
departure  in  "  The  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports,"  which  many  prefer 
to  the  Laureate's  scholarly  ode.  His  good  friend  Hawthorne  dies, 
and  he  embalms  his  memory  and  his  unfinished  romance  in  imperish- 
able verse : 

"  Ah  !  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power, 

And  the  lost  clew  regain  ? 
The  unfinished  window  in  Aladdin's  tower 

Unfinished  must  remain  ! " 

Sumner  dies,  and  he  drops  a  melodious  tear  upon  his  grave : 

"  "Were  a  star  quenched  on  high. 
For  ages  would  its  light, 
Still  traveling  downward  from  the  sky, 
Shine  on  our  mortal  sight. 

*'  So,  when  a  great  man  dies. 
For  years  beyond  our  ken. 
The  light  he  leaves  behind  him  lies 
Upon  the  paths  of  men." 

And  again  he  bids  him  farewell  in  a  touching  sonnet,  with  a  pa- 
thetic and  unexpected  ending : 


102      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

"  Good-night !  good-night !  as  we  so  oft  have  said 
Beneath  this  roof  at  midnight,  in  the  days 
That  are  no  more,  and  shall  no  more  return. 
Thou  hast  but  taken  thy  lamp  and  gone  to  bed  ; 
I  stay  a  little  longer,  as  one  stays 
To  cover  up  the  embers  that  still  burn. " 

A  child  is  bom  to  Mm,  and  his  friend  Lowell's  wife  dies  on  the 
same  night,  and  he  commemorates  both  in  "  The  Two  Angels,"  which 
has  always  seemed  to  me  one  of  his  perfect  poems. 

Mr.  Longfellow  published  few  translations  while  he  was  writing 
his  more  important  works,  such  as  the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,*' 
and  "  The  Story  of  Hiawatha."  That  he  had  not  forgotten  his  cun- 
ning, however,  was  evident  in  his  "Three  Books  of  Song"  (1872), 
where  he  printed  several  translations  of  Eastern  Songs,  and  in 
"Keramos,  and  other  Poems,"  which  contains  two  hexameter  trans- 
lations from  Virgil  and  Ovid,  and  twelve  translations  fi-om  French, 
German,  and  Italian  poets.  The  volume  last  mentioned  is  re- 
markable in  many  ways.  It  not  only  shows  no  diminution  of  men- 
tal vigor,  which  one  might  naturally  expect  in  a  poet  whose  years 
have  exceeded  the  allotted  age  of  man,  but  it  recalls  the  young 
poet  who  wrote  "The  Skeleton  in  Armor,"  and  the  "Slave's 
Dream."  I  know  not  where  to  look  for  more  fire  than  I  find 
in  "The  Leap  of  Koushan  Beg,"  nor  more  delicious  picturesque- 
ness  than  in  "Castles  in  Spain."  "Keramos"  belongs  to  the  same 
class  of  poems  as  "The  Building  of  the  Ship,"  and  is  as  perfect  a 
piece  of  poetic  art  as  that  exquisite  poem.  That  the  making  of 
pottery  could  be  so  effectively  handled  in  verse  reminds  me  of 
what  Stella  said  of  Swift,  viz.,  that  he  could  write  beautifully 
about  a  broomstick. 

Mr.  Longfellow's  friendliness,  not  to  say  generosity,  to  his  brother 
authors,  is  not  the  least  among  his  poetic  virtues.  He  sends  a  greeting 
to  Lowell  in  "  The  Herons  of  Elmwood,"  and  honors  the  memory  of 
Irving  in  a  tender  sonnet,  "In  the  Churchyard  at  Tarrytown."  In 
"  The  Three  Silences  of  Molinos  "  (which  are  those  of  Speech,  Desire, 


HENRY  WAD8W0RTH  LONGFELLOW.  103 

and  Thought)  lie  recognizes  the  excellence  of  the  poet  whom  New 
England  delights  to  honor  next  to  himself : 

"  0  thou,  whose  daily  life  anticipates 
The  world  to  come,  and  in  whose  thought  and  word 
The  spiritual  world  preponderates. 
Hermit  of  Amesbury  !  thou  too  hast  heard 
Voices  and  melodies  from  beyond  the  gates. 
And  speakest  only  when  thy  soul  is  stirred." 

If  there  was  any  doubt  before  that  Mr.  Longfellow  was  the  first 
of  living  sonneteers,  it  is  settled  by  "  A  Book  of  Sonnets "  in  this 
collection,  the  workmanship  of  which  is  simply  perfect. 

I  have  not  left  myseK  room  in  which  to  speak  of  Mr.  Longfellow's 
translation  of  the  "  Divina  Commedia,"  which  is  highly  thought  of  by 
scholarly  readers.  I  state,  however,  as  a  fact,  that  he  was  not  en- 
gaged upon  it  over  twenty-five  years,  as  we  are  told  in  the  "  Life  and 
Letters  of  George  Ticknor " ;  nor  more  than  thirty  years,  as  we  are 
told  in  Richardson's  "  Primer  of  American  Literature."  It  was  exe- 
cuted in  less  than  two  years. 

It  has  not  been  given  to  many  poets  to  carry  out  the  ideal  of  a 
poetic  life  as  he  has  done,  and  to  win  a  great  reputation  at  an  early 
age — a  reputation  which  has  not  lessened  or  suffered  from  any  fluctua- 
tion of  public  taste.  The  singer  of  "  Keramos  "  addresses  a  different 
public  from  the  one  that  welcomed  "The  Voices  of  the  Night," 
but  he  holds  it  nevertheless.  In  looking  back  upon  his  long  literary 
career,  I  can  see  that  he  has  been  true  to  himself  as  he  was  manifested 
to  us  in  his  early  prose  and  verse ;  that  he  has  fulfilled  his  scholarly 
intentions ;  and  that  he  has  created  and  satisfied  a  taste  for  a  literature 
which  did  not  exist  in  this  country  until  he  began  to  write — a  litera- 
ture drawn  from  the  different  languages  of  Europe,  now  in  the  shape 
of  direct  translation,  and  now  in  the  shape  of  suggestions,  alien  to 
the  mass  of  English  and  American  readers,  but  gladly  received  by 
both  as  new  intellectual  possessions.  He  has  broadened  our  culture 
in  completing  his  own,  and  has  enlarged  our  sympathies  until  they 


104       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

embrace  other  people's  than  ours — the  sturdy  Norseman,  the  simple 
Swede,  the  patient  Acadien,  and  the  marvel-believing  red  man  of  pre- 
historic times. 

Cardinal  Wiseman  delivered  a  lecture  some  years  ago  on  the 
"Home  Education  of  the  Poor."  In  the  course  of  this  lecture  he 
commented  upon  the  fact  that  England  has  no  poet  who  is  to  its 
laboring  classes  what  Goethe  is  to  the  peasant  of  Germany,  and  said : 
"There  is  one  writer  who  approaches  nearer  than  any  other  to  this 
standard,  and  he  has  already  gained  such  a  hold  on  our  hearts  that  it 
is  almost  unnecessary  for  me  to  mention  his  name.  Our  hemisphere 
can  not  claim  the  honor  of  having  brought  him  forth,  but  he  still 
belongs  to  us,  for  his  works  have  become  as  household  words  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken.  And  whether  we  are  charmed  by 
his  imagery,  or  soothed  by  his  melodious  versification,  or  elevated  by 
the  high  moral  teachings  of  his  pure  muse,  or  follow  with  sympathetic 
hearts  the  wanderings  of  Evangeline,  I  am  sure  that  all  who  hear  my 
voice  will  join  with  me  in  the  tribute  I  desire  to  pay  to  the  genius  of 
Longfellow." 


x/^i 


7^  .:c>^^^^:^y^ 


'c/d:>cj£^o.  //  .  /^^ 


WHITTIER's    birthplace,    near    HAVERHILL,    MASS. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER. 


JoHif  Geeenleaf  Whittier  is  in  some  respects  the  most  Ameri- 
can of  all  the  American  poets.  To  say  that  there  are  no  traces  of 
other  literatures  than  our  own  in  his  writings  is  to  say  too  much; 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  has  been  less  influenced  by  other  literar 
tures  than  any  of  our  poets,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  Bryant. 
When  he  is  least  original,  as  in  his  early  Indian  poems,  we  still  feel 
that  he  is  more  than  imitative ;  he  reflects  the  books  that  he  has  read, 
but  the  impression  which  they  leave  on  his  mind  is  no  more  permanent 
than  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  on  a  mountain  lake.  Of  his  genius  there 
never  was  any  doubt ;  what  was  doubtful  was  the  direction  which  it 
would  take,  and  which  would  lead  him  to  the  kingdom  of  which  he 

14 


106      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS 

was  to  Le  the  lord  and  master.  It  was  not  long  before  he  discovered 
that  he  possessed  a  personality  of  his  own;  but  it  was  only  after 
many  days,  and  much  intellectual  groping,  that  he  discovered  whither 
it  was  leading  him.  I  have,  I  believe,  a  tolerably  clear  idea  of  the 
place  that  he  occupies  in  American  literature,  and,  if  the  reader  will 
follow  me  carefully,  I  hope  to  point  out  the  steps  by  which  he  reached 
it.  It  was  no  royal  road  which  he  pursued,  but  a  succession  of  tan- 
gled paths  and  by-ways  in  which  he  was  often  bewildered,  but 
through  which  he  went  on  manfully — 

"  Beating  his  wings  toward  the  golden  bough." 

The  life  of  Mr.  Whittier  has  not  been  a  remakable  one,  though  it 
has  not  been  devoid  of  incidents  and  stormy  mental  struggles.  If  he 
had  been  born  in  the  goodly  State  of  Pennsylvania  instead  of  Massa- 
chusetts, the  burden  of  ancestral  tradition  would  probably  have  rested 
more  lightly  on  his  shoulders.  A  Friend  of  Friends,  he  inherited  cen- 
turies of  Puritan  aversion  and  persecution. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  Puritan  Fathers  for  many  things,  but  re- 
ligious toleration  is  not  among  the  number.  One  would  have  thought 
this  the  one  virtue  above  all  others  which  would  have  warmed  their 
rugged  natures ;  but  it  is  the  curse  of  persecution  that  it  makes  its 
sufferers  persecutors  in  turn,  the  exceptions  to  this  gloomy  rule  being 
few  and  far  between.  They  have  generally  been  found  among  the 
pietistic,  non-resistant  sects,  notably  among  the  followers  of  Fox  and 
Penn,  who  have  generally  been  reprobated  by  the  church  militant, 
which  has  now  confronted  them  with  the  standing  army  of  Epis. 
copacy,  and  now  harassed  them  with  the  free  lances  of  Dissent.  If 
liberty  of  conscience  came  over  in  the  Mayflower,  it  was  a  portion  of 
her  perishable  cargo,  and  was  soon  disposed  of,  and  never  afterward 
imported,  or,  if  imported,  was  confiscated  before  landing.  Nowhere 
were  moral  revenue  laws  more  strictly  enforced  than  in  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  Colony,  and  against  none  with  more  rigor  than  against  the 
Quakers.  The  drab  coats  and  broad-brimmed  hats  were  as  hateful  to 
the  colonists  as  the  feathers  and  the  war-paint  of  the  Indians.     They 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  107 

were  not  to  be  exterminated,  however,  for  there  was  an  invincible 
strength  in  the  doctrines  of  peace  which  they  professed  and  practiced, 
and  in  the  simple  goodness  of  their  lives.  Shunned  at  first,  it  was 
not  long  before  they  were  tolerated,  and  before  their  influence  was  felt 
in  the  milder  manners  of  their  Puritan  neighbors,  who  gradually  for- 
got the  senseless  animosities  of  their  ancestors.  Such  I  conceive  to  be 
the  early  colonial  history  of  the  Quakers,  who  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing themselves  in  Massachusetts  and  elsewhere ;  one  family,  in  particu- 
lar, on  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac.  This  family  was  of  no  more 
consequence,  in  the  eyes  of  its  contemporaries,  than  the  family  of 
Shakespeare,  a  couple  of  centuries  before,  or  the  family  of  Burns,  a 
century  later ;  but  it  is  of  importance  now,  because  it  has  produced 
that  bright,  consummate  flower  of  the  race — a  poet. 


..ILL,    MASS. 


We  have  not  hitherto  manifested  much  curiosity  in  regard  to  the 
genealogy  of  American  men  of  letters;  but,  if  Dalton's  theory  of 
heredity  obtains  a  foothold  among  us,  it  is  likely  to  be  applied  to 
them  by  our  children.  We  have  been  told  since  Bryant's  death  that 
his  mother  was  a  descendant  of  John  Alden,  and  I  have  somewhere 
read  that  Mr.  Longfellow  is  an  oifshoot  of  the  same  vigorous  stock. 
Of  the  ancestors  of  Mr.  Whittier  I  know  nothing,  except  that  they 
were  Friends,  as  I  have  intimated,  and  that  they  settled  on  the  banks 
of  the  Merrimac.     That  they  were  men  of  probity  and  principle  goes 


108      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

without  saying,  for  it  was  tlie  characteristic  of  the  peculiar  people  to 
which  they  belonged,  and  which  frequently  made  them  a  standing 
rebuke  to  those  about  them.  He  was  born  at  Haverhill,  Massachu- 
setts, on  the  17th  of  December,  1807.  He  resided  at  the  homestead 
of  his  family  until  his  twentieth  year,  getting  as  much  education  as 
was  then  thought  necessary — a  simple  course  of  study  in  which  the 
three  E,'s  were  prominent,  and  the  "  higher  branches,"  as  they  are  now 
called,  were  conspicuous  by  their  absence— and  making  himself  useful 
on  the  farm.  As  might  be  expected  in  a  secluded  rural  district  of 
New  England  sixty  years  ago,  he  had  little  aid  from  books.  There 
were  then  no  public  libraries,  no  lyceums,  reading  clubs,  nor  debating 
societies.  His  father's  library,  as  he  tells  us  in  "  Snow-Bound,"  con- 
sisted of  only  about  a  score  of  volumes,  mostly  relating  to  the  doc- 
trines of  his  sect  and  the  lives  of  its  founders.  There  was  a  single 
novel  of  a  very  harmless  character,  which  was  carefully  hidden  from 
the  younger  members  of  the  family,  and 

'*  Of  poetry,  or  good  or  bad, 
A  single  book  was  all  we  had, 
^  "Where  Ellwood's  meek,  drab-skirted  muse, 

A  stranger  to  the  heathen  Nine, 
Sang,  in  a  somewhat  nasal  whine. 
The  wars  of  David  and  the  Jews." 

One  year  of  academy  life  was  all  the  education  he  received,  apart 
from  that  obtained  at  the  district  school,  which  was  open  only  about 
twelve  weeks  in  midwinter.  Mr.  Whittier's  poem,  "  In  School  Days," 
gives  a  good  description  of  the  school-house. 

In  1840  he  went  to  Amesbuiy,  on  the  banks  of  the  picturesque 
Powow,  which  joins  the  Merrimac  at  Haverhill.  Mr.  Whittier  has 
made  his  readers  familiar  with  this  Indian-named  river  in  his  poems, 
for  from  his  study  window  he  could 

•  •  •  "  see  the  winding  Powow  fold 
The  green  hill  in  its  belt  of  gold." 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  109 

The  poet  is  fond  of  the  rivers  and  streams  of  his  boyhood.     In 

"  Snow-bound  "  he  sings  of  the  brook  that  flowed  by  his  birthplace  at 

Haverhill : 

''The  music  of  whose  liquid  lip 

Had  been  to  us  companionship  ; 

And,  in  our  lonely  life,  had  grown 

To  have  an  almost  human  tone." 

In  1876  Mr.  Whittier  changed  his  home  again,  this  time  to  Dan- 
gers, Massachusetts,  where  he  still  lives  in  an  old-fashioned  house 
called  Oak  Knoll,  from  whose  broad  piazzas  Mr.  Homer  Martin  has 
made  several  beautiful  pictures.  The  house  at  Amesbury,  some  four 
hours'  ride  by  train  from  Danvers,  is  owned  by  Mr.  Whittier  and 
kept  ready  for  occupancy  whenever  he  may  choose  to  visit  it,  but 
Oak  Knoll  is  his  favorite  home. 

It  was  not  as  a  wi'iter  of  verse  that  Mr.  Whittier  became  known, 
outside  of  his  limited  circle  of  readers  in  the  "  Haverhill  Gazette,"  but 
as  a  writer  of  prose  in  the  columns  of  the  "  American  Manufacturer," 
a  journal  in  which  tariffs  and  other  questions  of  political  economy 
were  discussed,  and  of  which  he  was  the  editor.  He  must  have  had 
some  reputation  as  a  thinker  to  have  been  intrusted  with  a  paper  of 
this  character  at  the  age  of  twenty-one — a  paper  which  was  likely  to 
raise  controversies  in  whic!h  no  rustic  pen  could  engage  successfully, 
least  of  all  a  poetic  one.  It  was  published  in  the  Athens  of  New 
England — Boston;  and  it  must  have  increased  his  reputation,  or  he 
would  not  have  been  selected  as  the  editor  of  the  "  New  England 
Weekly  Review,"  which  was  published  in  Hartford.  It  was  a  paper 
of  some  note  at  the  time  (1830),  which  had  been  edited  by  that  clever 
journalist,  George  D.  Prentice  (who  fancied  all  his  life  that  he  was  a 
poet),  and,  later,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  by  J.  G.  C.  Brainard,  whose 
early  death  was  a  loss  to  American  literature.  Mr.  Whittier's  first 
publications  were  a  little  volume  of  prose  and  verse  (selected,  I  pre- 
sume, from  his  contributions  to  the  "  Review  "),  entitled  "  Legends  of 
New  England"  (1831),  and  "Moll  Pitcher,"  the  date  of  which  is  not 
given.     I  have  not  seen  the  latter,  which  is  said  to  have  been  a  poeti- 


110      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

cal  tale^  of  whicli  Mistress  Mary  Pitcher,  the  famous  old  witch  of 
Nahant,  was  the  heroine.  Neither  of  these  productions  is  of  any  im- 
portance, I  imagine,  though  they  are  interesting  as  being  the  earliest 
of  Mr.  Whittier's  recorded  works,  and  as  showing  the  bent  of  his 
mind  at  that  period,  and  the  class  of  subjects  with  which  it  sympa- 
thized. The  first  attempts  of  men  of  genius  are  always  indicative  of 
their  powers,  suggesting,  as  they  do,  possibilities  which,  in  time,  and 
under  the  influence  of  favorable  stars,  ripen  into  potent  actualities. 
The  child  is  father  of  the  man,  in  literature  as  in  other  and  less  glori- 


THE    WHITTIER    HOUSE,    AMESBCRY,    MASS. 


ous  careers,  though  we  can  not  always  forecast  the  horoscope  of  the 
man  from  his  nativity ;  for  he  may  die  young,  like  Chatterton,  or  live, 
like  Dermody,  and  Maginn,  and  Mangan,  and  Poe. 

It  was  the  era  of  unsuccessful  Journals,  daily,  weekly,  and  other- 
wise ;  so  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the  "  New  England  Weekly  Ke- 
view  "  lingered,  and  died  a  natural  death.  Mr.  Whittier,  at  any  rate, 
severed  his  connection  with  it,  and  engaged  in  other  undertakings,  and 
during  the  next  five  years  he  was  alternately  a  biographer,  a  politician, 
a  farmer,  and  a  legislator.     He  published  in  1832  a  Memoir  of  Brain- 


JOHN  QREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  m 

ard,  whicli  was  prefixed  to  the  second  edition  of  his  "  Literary  Re- 
mains," and  in  1833  an  essay  entitled  "Justice  and  Expediency,  or 
Slavery  considered  with  a  View  to  its  Abolition."  There  was  some- 
thing about  the  young  Quaker  that  commended  him  to  the  respect  of 
his  fellow-townsmen,  who  elected  him  their  representative  in  the  State 
Legislature.  He  had  made  his  mark,  in  a  certain  sense,  and  had  ven- 
tured in  two  intellectual  paths  in  which  he  was  hereafter  to  walk — 
the  neglected,  shadowy  by-way  of  early  legendary  lore,  and  the  dan- 
gerous road  of  political  controversy,  in  which  few  were  courageous 
enough  to  be  seen.  He  was  a  bold  man  forty  years  ago  who  dared 
avow  himself  an  abolitionist.  Love  of  justice  in  the  abstract,  pur- 
suit of  politics  in  the  concrete,  and  journalism  in  its  various  depart- 
ments, are  all  excellent  things ;  but,  with  due  respect  to  the  men  of 
letters  who  have  distinguished  themselves  therein,  they  are  not  litera- 
ture. Mr.  Whittier  had  made  his  mark,  as  I  have  said,  but,  strictly 
speaking,  he  was  not  yet  an  author.  The  work  that  he  had  hitherto 
performed  was  experimental  and  tentative ;  what  would  he  do  next  ? 
what  was  wanted  ?  what  could  he  do  best  ?  That  he  put  these  ques- 
tions to  himself  is  extremely  probable,  and  that  they  were  soon  an- 
swered, in  a  measure,  is  certain. 

American  literature  was  in  the  formative  stage  of  its  existence  half 
a  century  ago.  No  one  could  say  exactly  what  it  was,  or  what  it  was 
likely  to  be.  That  it  should  differ  from  English  literature  was  admit- 
ted by  all,  but  wherein  should  it  differ  ?  What  element  of  thought 
was  peculiar  to  the  New  World  ?  What  did.  it  possess,  either  in  the 
present  or  the  past,  out  of  which  a  characteristic  and  distinctive  litera- 
ture could  be  builded  ?  American  poetry,  which  chiefly  concerns  us 
now,  had  busied  itself  at  intervals  with  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of 
the  Continent.  Freneau  was  among  our  earliest  writers  of  verse  who 
felt  that  there  was,  or  might  be,  poetic  possibilities  in  the  Indian,  and 
that  he  did  not  develop  them  into  a  poem  of  any  length  was  doubtless 
owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  rather  a  political  singer  than  a  poet. 
He  was  read  by  Campbell,  who  was  not  above  stealing  from  him,  and 
who  also  detected  the  poetic  side  of  the  Indian  nature.     "  Gertrude  of 


112       THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Wyoming  "  is  a  pathetic  poem,  though  it  is  absurd  in  its  want  of  local 
coloring,  and  the  Oneida  chief  who  figures  in  it, 

"  The  stoic  of  the  woods,  the  man  without  a  tear," 

is,  indeed,  a  vigorous  and  life-like  sketch,  which  ranks  among  the 
happiest  creations  of  Campbell's  genius.  This  poem  was  at  once  re- 
printed here,  and  was  immediately  popular,  being,  as  it  was,  a  revela- 
tion of  the  poetic  value  of  certain  episodes  in  our  colonial  history. 
The  next  Indian  poem  of  any  account  was  the  "  Yamoyden  "  of  Sands 
and  Eastman,  which  attracted  a  fair  share  of  attention,  and  received 
more  praise  than  it  was  entitled  to  from  patriotic  critics.  Bryant, 
then,  as  now,  the  first  of  our  poets,  was  the  first  to  perceive  the  proper 
poetic  place  of  the  red  man,  and  his  relation  to  the  white  race  by 
whom  he  had  been  conquered.  The  few  Indian  poems  which  he  had 
written  were  exquisite,  but  they  were  too  quiet,  I  suspect,  to  strike 
their  readers,  who  looked  for  narratives  instead  of  suggestions  and  re- 
flections, and  who  wanted  to  be  interested  in  historical  incidents. 
They  were  ready  to  welcome  any  one  w^ho  satisfied,  or  seemed  to 
satisfy,  their  uncritical  demands,  and  our  poets  and  versifiers  were 
anxious  to  accommodate  them.  The  recognition  of  this  expectancy, 
rather  than  a  natural  inclination  to  gratify  it,  beguiled  Mr.  Whittier 
into  the  writing  of  his  third  volume,  "  Mogg  Megone,"  which  was  pub- 
lished in  his  twenty-eighth  year,  1835. 

It  is  founded  on  fact,  as  the  saying  is — at  any  rate  as  regards  the 
existence  of  its  hero,  Mogg  Megone,  who  was  a  leader  among  the  Saco 
Indians  in  the  bloody  war  of  1677  (I  am  following  Mr.  Whittier's 
notes),  who  attacked  and  captured  the  garrison  at  Black  Point,  Octo- 
ber 12th  of  that  year,  and  cut  off,  at  the  same  time,  a  party  of 
Englishmen  near  Saco  Eiver.  Besides  Mogg  Megone,  who  is  the 
average  Indian  chief  of  colonial  records — brave,  suspicious,  revengeful, 
and  drunken — ^we  have  John  Bonython,  a  white  outlaw,  his  daughter 
Ruth,  whose  lover  Mogg  Megone  has  slain  and  scalped,  and  a  Jesuit 
priest,  of  whom  Pere  Ralle,  one  of  the  most  indefatigable  French  mis- 
sionaries, was  the  original.     These  four  shadows,  the  murder  of  Ruth's 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER. 


113 


lover  by  the  Indian, 
the  murder  of  the  lat- 
ter by  the  maiden,  and 
her  subsequent  remorse 
— ^given  these,  it  is  not 
____  difficult    to    work    out 

the  story  of  "Mogg 
Megone,"  which  is  hardly  a  tragic 
one,  though  it  is  based  upon  deeds 
of  violence,  and  is  certainly  not  a  poetical  one,  in  spite  of  the  metrical 
form  in  which  it  is  cast.  It  is  easily  though  carelessly  written,  and 
is  noticeable  for  the  affluence  of  its  descriptions. 

15 


THE    MERRIMACK    ANU    I>OWO\V. 


114      THE  HOMES  AND   HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

The .  material  and  spiritual  life  of  Mr.  Whittier,  at  this  time  and 
later,  is  not  so  clear  to  me  as  I  wish  it  were,  and  as  it  would  have 
been  if  he  had  arranged  his  poems  in  the  order  in  which  they  were 
written,  and  not  under  arbitrary  headings  and  classifications.  "Mogg 
Megone"  was  followed  by  "Lays  of  Home,"  in  1843;  by  "The 
Stranger  in  Lowell,"  in  1845;  and  "  Supernaturalism  in  New  Eng- 
land," in  1847,  the  two  last  in  prose.  While  these  works  were  in 
progress  Mr.  Whittier  changed  his  residence,  and  enrolled  himself  as 
an  active  worker  among  the  abolitionists,  in  1838-'39.  He  edited  the 
"Pennsylvania  Freeman,"  an  anti-slavery  journal  published  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  so  little  to  the  satisfaction  of  those  who  were  opposed  to 
its  teachings  that  his  office  was  sacked  and  burned  by  a  mob.  He 
afterward  acted  as  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
and  edited  the  "Anti-Slavery  Reporter."  His  last  editorial  connec- 
tions were  with  the  "  Lowell  Standard "  and  the  "  National  Era." 
To  consider  Mr.  Whittier  at  this  period  simply  as  a  poet  would  be 
as  unjust  as  to  consider  him  simply  as  a  moralist,  the  fact  being  that 
he  was  both  a  poet  and  a  moralist,  the  former  by  virtue  of  his  genius, 
the  latter  by  virtue  of  his  Quaker  ancestry,  his  social  surroundings  and 
proclivities,  and  the  condition  of  his  country. 

His  anti-slavery  poems,  which  were  collected  by  him  under  the 
title  of  "Voices  of  Freedom,"  cover  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  the 
earliest  bearing  the  date  of  1833,  and  the  latest  that  of  1848.  The 
majority  of  them  (there  are  thirty-eight  in  all)  come  under  the  head  of 
occasional  poems.  They  are  earnestly  written,  but,  as  the  events 
which  suggested  them  were  of  a  tempor'ary  character,  one  has  to 
stimulate  an  interest  to  read  them  now,  and  this  not  so  much  because 
the  vexed  question  which  so  fiercely  agitated  the  poet  is  happily  an 
obsolete  one  as  because  in  grappling  with  it  he  forgot  to  be  a  poet. 
There  is  no  unconquerable  antagonism  between  poetry  and  morality, 
but  the  perfect  fusion  of  these  intellectual  qualities  demands  a  kind 
of  genius  which  Mr.  Whittier  did  not  at  this  time  possess.  Whether 
it  be  of  a  higher  or  lower  order  need  not  be  discussed  ;  that  it  is  of  a 
different  order  sufficiently  explains  the  poetical  deficiencies  of  his  early 


/ 


/ 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  II5 

anti-slavery  poems.  He  was  carried  away  by  his  indignation,  whicli  was 
righteous  enough,  but,  unfortunately,  it  was  not  inspiration.  I  should 
except,  perhaps,  from  this  critical  condemnation  the  "Farewell  of  a 
Virginia  Slave  Mother  to  her  Daughters  sold  into  Southern  Bondage," 
and  "  Massachusetts  to  Virginia."  A  stanza  of  the  former  will  show  its 
quality,  and  recall  the  poem  itself  to  the  memory  of  our  older  readers : 

"  Gone,  gone — sold  and  gone, 

To  the  rice-swamp,  dank  and  lone. 
Where  the  slave-whip  ceaseless  swings. 
Where  the  noisome  insect  stings, 
Where  the  fever  demon  strews 
Poison  with  the  falling  dews. 
Where  the  sickly  sunbeams  glare 
Through  the  hot  and  misty  air — 

Gone,  gone — sold  and  gone, 

To  the  rice-swamp  dank  and  lone, 

From  Virginia's  hills  and  waters — 

Woe  is  me,  my  stolen  daughters  ! " 

If  I  were  writing  as  a  moralist  I  should,  of  course,  take  a  moral 
view  of  Mr.  Whittier's  anti-slavery  poems,  and  should,  no  doubt,  find 
much  to  praise  in  them.  Animated  by  the  spirit  of  freedom,  they  are 
vehement,  but  not  intemperate,  in  expression,  and  there  is  no  gain- 
saying the  justice  of  the  cause  they  maintain.  That  they  accom- 
plished much  or  little  toward  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  no  reason 
why  they  should  not  have  been  written,  nor  why  they  should  be 
passed  over  in  silence.  Holding  the  opinions  that  he  did,  and  having 
the  temperament  that  he  had,  Mr.  Whittier  could  no  more  have  stifled 
his  fiery  denunciations  of  slavery  than  the  old  Hebrew  seers  could 
have  stifled  their  dark  and  fateful  prophesies.  We  all  have  convic- 
tions, and  honest  men  follow  them,  no  matter  whither  they  lead.  We 
can  afford  to  let  health  and  wealth  and  fame  miss  us,  but  we  can  not 
afford  to  neglect  our  duties.  Least  of  all  can  the  poets,  for  they,  above 
all  other  men,  are  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  the  implacable  goddess, 

*'  Stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God." 


116     THE  H0ME8  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


Granting  this,  as  I  must,  I  can  not  bring  myself  to  admire  Mr.  Whit- 
tier's  anti-slavery  poetry.  I  do  not  so  much  wish  it  unwritten  as  that 
the  time  spent  in  writing  it  had  been  spent  in  more  delightful  tasks. 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  117 

I  speak   for   myself,  of   course,   as  a  critic  and  a  lover  of   poetical 
poetry. 

If  the  moralist  was  strong  in  Mr.  "Whittier  during  the  iifteen  years 
that  he  allowed  himself  to  support  the  anti-slavery  cause  by  his  verse, 
he  by  no  means  slumbered  as  a  poet.  His  poems  written  during  that 
period,  published  under  the  name  of  "Lays  of  Home,"  more  than 
confirmed  the  favorable  impression  that  had  been  created  by  "  Mogg 
Megone."  If  the  original  editions  of  his  writings  were  before  me,  I 
could  speak  of  these  poems  with  more  certainty  than  at  present,  when 
I  have  to  content  myself  with  his  "Complete  Poetical  Works  "  (1876) 
in  which  I  know  not  where  to  look  for  them,  though  I  presume  they 
are  to  be  found  under  the  headings  of  "  Legendary  "  and  "  Miscellane- 
ous." What  first  strikes  one  in  reading  them  is  the  positive  and 
admirable  growth  of  their  author,  who  has  now  thoroughly  mastered 
the  technique  of  the  poetic  art. 

The  motive  of  these  poems,  and  of  "  Pautucket,"  is  partly  natural 
description  and  partly  historical  recollection.  The  Indian  element, 
which  crops  out  in  the  last,  underlies  "  The  Funeral  Tree  of  the  Soko- 
kis  "  and  "  The  Fountain,"  which  are  imaginatively  suggestive.  Be- 
longing to  the  period  are  four  ballads,  if  I  may  call  them  such,  which 
stand  out  among  Mr.  Whittier's  early  productions  as  specimens  of  his 
objective  art.  I  refer  to  the  pathetic  story  of  "Cassandra  South- 
wick,"  the  tragic  episode  of  "  St.  John,"  the  adventure  of  Goodman 
Macy  and  the  fugitive  Quaker  celebrated  in  "  The  Exiles,"  and  the 
strange  spiritual  study  of  "  The  New  Wife  and  the  Old."  We  feel,  in 
reading  these  poems,  that  we  are  in  contact  with  creations ;  we  have 
escaped  abstractions,  and  have  embraced  human  beings.  We  feel  the 
individuality  of  Cassandra  Southwick,  who  is  a  veritable  woman, 
noble  in  her  tribulations,  and  glorious  in  her  triumph,  which  is  simply 
that  of  womanhood.  It  is  she  who  relates  her  story  and  not  her  poet, 
who  has  no  more  to  do  with  it  than  the  chorus  of  a  Greek  tragedy 
with  the  actors  of  the  tragedy  itself;  he  is  an  onlooker  and  infre- 
quent expositor,  but  not  an  actor.  "  The  New  Wife  and  the  Old  "  is 
a  remarkable  poem,  which  has  for  its  theme  the  profoundest  of  mortal 


118      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

relations,  and  whicli  clutclies  at  tlie  relations  and  sympathies  of  the 
worlds  of  life  and  death. 

The  poems  which  Mr.  Whittier  has  arranged  under  the  head  of 
"  Miscellaneous  "  in  the  collected  edition  of  his  Poetical  Works  exhibit 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  qualities  by  which  his  ripest  poetry  is  distin- 
guished. "  The  Knight  of  St.  John  "  is  at  once  a  ballad  and  a  study 
of  spiritual  experience,  such  as  Tennyson  presents  in  "  St.  Agnes  "  and 
"  Sir  Galahad."  It  is  followed  by  a  group  of  seven  poems,  the  inspira- 
tion of  which  is  drawn  from  Hebraic  writings  and  associations.  Two 
of  them,  "  Ezekiel "  and  "  The  Wife  of  Manoah  to  her  Husband,"  are 
valuable  and  permanent  additions  to  English  sacred  poetry. 

The  transition  from  poems  like  these  to  "  My  Soul  and  I "  was  a 
natural  one,  and,  to  a  genius  like  Mr.  Whittier's,  inevitable.  Mr.  N. 
P.  Willis,  when  a  young  man,  attempted  scriptural  poems,  and  had 
been  greatly  overpraised  for  his  attempts,  which  missed  all  that  was 
characteristic  in  the  Biblical  writings,  for  which  he  substituted  a  kind 
of  poetic  elegance  that  could  well  have  been  spared.  He  sauntered 
about  the  sacred  places  in  a  domino,  which  was  mistaken  for  the  pro- 
phetic mantle.  This  fell  upon  the  shoulders  of  another,  who  inherited 
^a  serious  nature,  and  was  not  afraid  to  question  himself  in  regard  to 
his  relations  to  his  Maker. 

I  am  not  theologian  enough  to  have  an  opinion  other  than  a  poeti- 
cal one  concerning  "  My  Soul  and  I,"  but,  poetically  speaking,  it 
seems  to  me  a  noteworthy  production — a  solemn  canticle  in  which  the 
religious  nature  of  the  writer  struggles  to  express  itself,  and  does  so, 
though  neither  so  clearly  nor  so  forcibly  as  in  similar  poems  of  a  later 
date.  I  know  of  nothing  in  American  poetry  which  it  resembles,  and 
which  could  have  suggested  it.  (The  question  of  originality — let  me 
say,  once  for  all— never  occurs  to  me  in  reading  the  poetry  of  Mr. 
Whittier,  who  never  reminds  me  of  any  other  poet,  living  or  dead, 
being  at  all  times  and  on  all  subjects  his  own  simple,  natural,  manly 
self.) 

The  affectionate  simplicity  of  Mr.  Whittier's  nature  is  seen  in  the 
poems  which  he  addressed  to  his  personal  friends,  and  to  those  whose 


JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  119 

life  pursuits  ran  in  the  same  channels  as  his  own  moral  sympathies. 
Among  his  miscellaneous  poems  of  this  period  are  one  addressed  to 
Follen  ("  On  Eeading  his  Essay  on  the  Future  State  "),  and  another 
to  the  poet  Pierpont,  whose  "  Airs  of  Palestine  "  delighted  his  child- 
hood, and  whose  song,  he  says, 

**  Hath  a  rude  martial  tone,  a  blow  in  every  thought." 

The  largeness  of  his  genius  was  manifested  in  "  Randolph  of  Roanoke," 
a  magnificent  tribute  to  the  memory  of  that  great  man,  and  all  the 
more  so  in  that  it  was  wrung  from  the  lips  of  an  opponent.  As  a 
piece  of  character-painting  I  know  not  where  to  look  for  its  equal,  and 
the  marvel  is  that  the  portrait  of  this  great  slave-holder  should  have 
been  drawn  so  justly  by  such  a  partisan  as  Whittier.  Great  men 
recognize  each  other,  however,  and  never  more  readily  than  when  the 
differences  between  them  are  radical  and  conscientious.  The  Quaker 
poet  saw  the  Virginia  slave-holder  as  he  was — a  man  to  be  known  and 
respected. 

The  Portuguese  poet  Camoens  wrote  some  of  his  poems  in  two 
languages — Portuguese  and  Spanish — or,  to  speak  more  exactly,  occa- 
sionally employed  both  those  languages  in  the  same  poem.  He  com- 
pared this  intellectual  feat  to  walking  with  one  foot  in  Portugal  and 
the  other  in  Spain.  I  am  reminded  of  this  curious  literary  freak  by 
the  early  poems  of  Mr.  Whittier,  which  illustrated  the  life  of  the 
Present  and  reproduced  the  life  of  the  Past.  It  is  not  easy  to  say 
which  had  the  stronger  claim  upon  his  sympathy,  for  Cassandra  South- 
wick,  dead  generations  before,  was  as  vital  in  his  song  as  John  Ran- 
dolph, whose  dust  was  scarcely  cold.  Drawn  from  the  beginning  to 
the  legendary  lore  of  New  England,  he  could  not  be  made  to  see  that 
its  aboriginal  lore  was  not  equally  valuable  for  poetic  purposes.  He 
discarded  in  "  Mogg  Megone  "  the  romance  which  poets  and  novelists 
had  thrown  around  the  Indian ;  but  the  Indian  and  his  belongings 
still  interested  his  imagination,  and  would  not  be  laid  until  made  the 
subject  of  another  poem.  He  selected  an  episode  which  was  in  itself 
poetical,  or  at  any  rate  which  might  be  made  so,  and  proceeded  to 


120      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

write  his  second  Indian  story,  "The  Bridal  of  Pennacook."  His 
thesis,  which  he  found  in  Morton's  "New  Canaan,"  is  thus  stated 
by  himself  in  one  of  the  notes  to  this  poem : 

"  Winnepurkit,  otherwise  called  George,  Sachem  of  Saugus,  married  a  daugh- 
ter of  Passaconaway,  the  great  Pennacook  chieftain,  in  1662.  The  wedding  took 
place  at  Pennacook  (now  Concord,  New  Hampshire),  and  the  ceremonies  closed 
with  a  great  feast.  According  to  the  usages  of  the  chiefs,  Passaconaway  ordered 
a  select  number  of  his  men  to  accompany  the  newly-married  couple  to  the  dwelling 
of  the  husband,  where  in  turn  there  was  another  great  feast.  Some  time  after,  the 
wife  of  Winnepurkit,  expressing  a  desire  to  visit  her  father's  house,  was  permitted 
to  go,  accompanied  by  a  brave  escort  of  her  husband's  chief  men.  But,  when  she 
wished  to  return,  her  father  sent  a  messenger  to  Saugus,  informing  her  husband, 
and  asking  him  to  come  and  take  her  away.  He  returned  for  answer  that  he  had 
escorted  his  wife  to  her  father's  house  in  a  style  that  became  a  chief,  and  that  now, 
if  she  wished  to  return,  her  father  must  send  her  back  in  the  same  way.  This 
Passaconaway  refused  to  do,  and  it  is  said  that  here  terminated  the  connection  of 
his  daughter  with  the  Saugus  chief." 

There  is,  I  think,  a  poem  in  this  prose  statement  of  "  The  Bridal 
of  Pennacook,"  but  Mr.  Whittier  has  somehow  missed  it;  possibly 
because  he  has  indulged  too  largely  in  external  description.  He  has 
divided  the  subject  into  eight  parts,  or  sections,  and  has  expended  his 
strength  upon  each  instead  of  subordinating  them  to  their  proper 
places,  and  to  the  general  harmony  and  unity  of  the  poem.  The  de- 
tails of  these  sections,  picturesque  and  otherwise,  occupy  us  too  much 
in  the  reading,  and  prevent  us  from  concentrating  our  attention  upon 
the  story  itseK.  We  have  a  feeling,  too,  that  the  poet  obtrudes  him- 
.  self  (unconsciously,  of  course),  and  that  the  manifestations  of  his  per- 
sonality are  as  unnecessary  as  they  are  unartistic.  He  does  not  allow 
the  story  to  tell  itself,  but  insists  upon  telling  it  in  an  arbitrary  fashion 
of  his  own,  and  dwells  so  long  upon  insignificant  points  that  when  the 
chief  point — the  wifely  devotion  of  his  heroine — is  reached,  it  has  lost 
all  importance.  He  has  bestowed  too  much  care  upon  some  parts  of 
his  narratives  and  too  little  upon  others,  and  by  so  doing  has  shaken 
our  confidence  in  his  judgment.     He  vexes  us,  in  short,  for  he  has 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHIT  TIER. 


121 


done  justice  neither  to  himself  nor  to  the  old  story  which  he  under- 
took to  tell. 

The  primitive  colonial  and  aboriginal  life  which  Mr.  Whittier 
failed  to  reproduce  in  "  The  Bridal  of  Pennacook "  and  "  Mogg  Me- 
gone  "  was  thoroughly  mastered  by  him  in  his  next  volume  of  prose, 
"  Margaret  Smith's  Journal."  It  purports  to  be  the  writing  of  a  young 
English  maiden  on  a  visit  to  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 
1678-9,  and  who  Jotted  down  in  her  journal  whatever  struck  her  as 
being  likely  to  interest  her  friends  in  England.     She  seized  the  salient 


VIEW   FROM   THE   PORCH    AT    OAK   KNOLL,    DANTERS,    MASS. 


points  of  colonial  life,  and  described  the  social  and  religious  condition 
of  the  colonists,  who  were  much  exercised  by  Quakers  and  witchcraft. 
Mistress  Margaret  contrives  to  impart  her  personality  to  her  writing, 
which  is  delightful  reading — simple,  unaffected,  womanly,  preserving 
everywhere  the  local  color  of  the  period  and  the  antique  flavor  of  the 
old  colonial  records.  "  Margaret  Smith's  Journal "  is  one  of  a  book- 
shelf of  modern  antiques,  and  one  of  the  best,  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
being  as  faithful  a  reproduction  of  a  by-gone  time  as  "  Lady  Willough- 
by's  Diary  "  or  "  The  Maiden  and  Married  Life  of  Mary  Powell." 

16 


122     THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

The  writings  of  Mr.  Whittier  have  hitherto  confined  themselves 
to  three  phases  of  our  national  life  and  history,  viz. :  to  the  pictu- 
resque savagery  of  the  red  men,  to  episodes  of  the  colonial  life 
of  the  Puritans  and  Quakers,  and  to  the  consideration  of  the  evils 
of  slaveiy.  His  Indian  poems  are  not  remarkable,  though  they  are 
as  good  as  any  we  have,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  some  of 
Bryant's,  which  hardly  rise  above  the  level  of  lyrics.  His  legendary 
poems  are  glimpses  of  the  struggle  between  a  set  form  of  faith  and 
the  freedom  of  conscience,  and,  while  they  are  poetically  just  to 
both  sides,  they  leave  no  doubt  in  the  mind  on  which  side  the 
poet's  sympathies  are  ranged.  (What  part  could  a  Quaker  take, 
pray,  but  the  part  of  the  wronged  and  the  opposed — the  part  of 
his  ancestors  and  brethren  ?  I  say  brethren  advisably,  for  the  New 
England  Quaker  of  forty  years  ago  was  rather  a  tolerated  than  a 
respected  member  of  the  community.)  His  anti-slavery  poems  were 
earnest  and  indignant ;  earnest  in  their  maintenance  of  the  freedom 
of  all  men  without  regard  to  color,  and  indignant  at  the  persecutions 
of  those  who  sought  to  restore  the  rights  which  had  been  wrested 
from  them.  It  was  not  necessary  to  be  an  abolitionist  to  be  moved 
-•  by  these  anti-slavery  productions  of  Mr.  Whittier ;  but  it  was  neces- 
sary to  be  a  very  ardent  one  in  order  to  find  them,  or  make  them, 
poetical.  They  were  wrung  from  his  heart — torn  from  his  soul ;  but, 
strange  to  say,  they  made  no  mark  in  our  literature ;  they  contained 
no  unforgetable  verse — no  line  which  the  world  would  not  willingly 
let  die.  The  poet  was  so  overpowered  by  his  inspiration  that  he  for- 
got to  deliver  his  message. 

Mr.  Whittier  understood  the  merits  and  defects  of  his  poems  quite 
as  well  as,  if  not  better  than,  most  of  his  critics,  and  he  took  an  accu- 
rate measure  of  himself  in  a  "  Proem,"  which  was  written  in  Novem- 
ber, 1847,  and  was,  without  doubt,  the  prologue  to  one  of  his  volumes 
of  verse,  and  probably  to  a  collected  edition  of  his  poetical  works. 
He  loves  the  songs  of  Spenser  and  Sidney,  he  tells  his  readers ;  but  he 
tries  in  vain  to  breathe  their  marvelous  notes.  They  must  not  expect 
these,  for  he  has  nothing  to  offer  them  but  the  jarring  words  of  one 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  123 

whose  rhyme  had  beaten  the  hurried  tune  of  labor  and  the  rugged 
and  stormy  march  of  duty. 

"  Of  mystic  beauty,  dreamy  grace, 
No  rounded  art  the  lack  supplies  ; 

Unskilled  the  subtile  lines  to  trace, 

Or  softer  shades  of  Nature's  face, 
I  view  her  common  forms  with  unanointed  eyes. 

"  Nor  mine  the  seer-like  power  to  show 
The  secrets  of  the  heart  and  mind  ; 

To  drop  the  plummet-line  below 

Our  common  world  of  Joy  and  woe, 
A  more  intense  despair,  or  brighter  hope  to  find. 

"  Yet  here  at  least  an  earnest  sense 
Of  human  right  and  weal  is  shown ; 

A  hate  of  tyranny  intense. 

And  hearty  in  its  vehemence, 
As  if  my  brother's  pain  and  sorrow  were  my  own. 

*'  Oh,  Freedom  !  If  to  me  belong 
Nor  mighty  Milton's  gift  divine. 

Nor  Marvell's  wit  and  graceful  song. 

Still  with  a  love  as  deep  and  strong 
As  theirs,  I  lay,  like  them,  my  best  gifts  on  thy  shrine  ! " 

Mr.  Whittier's  next  collection,  "  Songs  of  Labor  and  Other  Poems  " 
(1850),  marked  a  change  in  his  practice,  if  not  in  his  theory,  of  poetry. 
He  had  succeeded  in  emancipating  himself  from  himself,  and  had 
become  a  writer  of  objective  poems — poems,  that  is,  which  were  writ- 
ten for  their  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  any  emotion  in  his  own 
mind.  He  had  mastered  his  powers,  which  willingly  obeyed  his  crea- 
tive impulses,  and  had  set  them  to  work  upon  material  themes,  which 
concern  us,  and  ought  to  concern  us,  in  spite  of  all  that  subjective 
poets  may  urge  to  the  contrary.  Schiller  was  the  first  modern  poet 
who  perceived  the  poetry  of  common  things,  and  in  his  "  Song  of  the 
Bell "  he  struck  the  key-note  of  a  succession  of  similar  songs  which 


124     THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

have  not  yet  celebrated  all  the  employments  of  this  work-a-day  world 
of  ours.  This  impassioned  lyric  was  the  model  of  Mr.  Longfellow  in 
his  "Building  of  the  Ship,"  and  of  Mr.  Whittier  in  his  "Songs  of 
Labor,"  though  it  is  less  apparent  in  the  last,  which  deal  with  the 
poetic  capabilities  of  seven  different  kinds  of  labor  instead  of  one,  and 
in  a  manner  which  was  original  with  Mr.  Whittier,  who  is  a  better 
artist,  I  think,  than  the  German  master,  in  that  his  work  is  more 
obvious,  more  picturesque,  and  more  generally  intelligible.  The 
human  associations  which  cluster  around  ship-builders,  shoemakers, 
drovers,  fishermen,  and  the  like,  are  more  definite  than  those  which 
cluster  around  the  molders  and  casters  of  bells. 

Mr.  Whittier  was  wiser  than  he  knew,  I  think,  when  he  resolved 
to  be  the  poet  of  Labor.  A  lesser  poet  would  not  have  ventured  to 
do  so,  for  he  would  not  have  considered  it  poetical,  and,  even  if  he 
could  have  persuaded  himself  that  it  was,  he  would  not  have  been 
able  to  distinguish  its  poetic  from  its  prosaic  element.  It  belongs  to  a 
class  of  subjects  which  are  not  in  themselves  poetical,  though  they  are 
made  so  when  the  imagination  is  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  There 
is  nothing  poetical  in  the  act  of  making  shoes,  or  of  driving  cattle. 
Let  us  see  what  Mr.  Whittier  finds  in  these  laborious  facts,  and  what 
they  suggest  to  him.  What  does  he  say  to  you,  disciples  of  St.  Cris- 
pin, and  fellow-members  of  the  gentle  craft  of  leather  ? 

"  For  you,  along  the  Spanish  main, 

A  hundred  keels  are  plowing  ; 
For  you,  the  Indian  on  the  plain 

His  lasso-coil  is  throwing ; 
For  you,  deep  glens  with  hemlock  dark 

The  woodman's  fire  is  lighting  ;  ' 

For  you,  upon  the  oak's  gray  bark. 

The  woodman's  axe  is  smiting. 

"  For  you,  from  Carolina's  pine. 
The  rosin-gum  is  stealing ; 
For  you,  the  dark-eyed  Florentine 
Her  silken  skein  is  reeling  ; 


JOHN  OREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  125 

For  you,  the  dizzy  goatherd  roams 

His  rugged  Alpine  ledges  ; 
For  you,  round  all  her  shepherd  homes. 

Bloom  England's  thorny  hedges." 

The  alchemy  which  has  extracted  these  stanzas  from  sole  leather, 
waxed  ends,  and  pegs,  ought  at  least  to  extract  sunbeams  from  cucum- 
bers. 

The  associations  which  cluster  around  the  labors  of  mankind  the 
world  over  are  poetical,  though  poets  are  required  to  detect  them,  for 
they  are  never  found  on  the  surface.  They  differ  among  different 
races,  and  at  different  times,  but  they  are  substantially  the  same,  never- 
theless, for  they  attach  themselves  to  humanity.  They  are  detected  by 
poets,  as  I  have  said,  but  not  by  poets  of  the  highest  order,  who  culti- 
vate the  idealities  and  sublimities  of  their  art,  and  with  whom  song  is 
literature  rather  than  inspiration.  They  appeal  to  the  boiTi  singers, 
who  never  lose  their  sympathy  with  the  people  from  whom  they 
spring,  no  matter  how  lettered  they  may  afterward  become,  nor  their 
power  of  seeing  beauty  in  common  things,  but  who  preserve  to  the 
end  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine.  Such  a  poet  is  Mr.  Whittier, 
who  is  thoroughly  at  home  in  his  "Songs  of  Labor,"  which  have 
always  seemed  to  me  the  most  characteristic  of  all  his  productions, 
and  those  by  which  foreign  readers  would  most  readily  recognize  him 
as  an  American  poet.  They  would  select,  I  think,  as  distinctive  of 
his  genius  and  his  country,  "  The  Drovers,"  "  The  Fishermen,"  "  The 
Huskers,"  and  "  The  Lumbermen." 

The  "  Songs  of  Labor "  are  followed  (in  the  complete  edition  of 
Mr.  Whittier's  poetical  works)  by  upward  of  fifty  poems  which  are 
ranged  under  the  head  of  "Miscellaneous."  They  are  divided  into 
classes  or  groups,  "  The  Angels  of  Buena  Vista,"  "  Barclay  of  Ury," 
"The  Legend  of  St.  Mark,"  and  "Calef  in  Boston"  ranking  among 
legendary  poems ;  "  Worship,"  "  Lines  accompanying  Manuscripts  pre- 
sented to  a  Friend,"  "Channing,"  "To  the  Memory  of  Charles  B. 
Storrs,"  and  "  Memories,"  among  personal  poems ;  and  "  The  Reward," 
"To  Pius  IX,"  "The  Men  of  Old,"  "The  Peace  Convention  at  Brus- 


126      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


sels,"  and  "  Seed-time  and  Harvest,"  among  didactic  poems.  There  is 
a  ripeness  of  thouglit  about  tliese  productions  whicli  I  do  not  find 
in  Mr.  Whittier's  earlier  verse,  and  a  noticeable  grace  and  beauty  of 
expression  wliicli  leave  nothing  to  be  desired.  "Hampton  Beach," 
for  example,  is  one  of  Mr.  Whittier's  faultless  poems,  its  indication 
of  outward  nature  and  its  suggestion  of  a  spiritual  mood  being  alike 

perfect.  If  one  wishes 
to  see  how  the  sea  from 
shore  has  affected  two 
poets,  and  to  feel  at 
the  same  time  their  dis- 
similarity of  genius,  he 
should  read  "  Hampton 
Beach"  before  or  after 
reading  Shelley's  "Stan- 
zas written  in  Dejection 
near  Naples." 

The  poets  of  Ameri- 
ca are  distinguished  from 
the  poets  of  Europe  by 
the  resers^e  which  they 
have  always  maintained 
in  regard  to  themselves. 
It  is  not  impossible  that 
the  future  historian  of 
oui"  literature  may  de- 
tect their  personality  in 
their  writings,  but  he  will  never,  I  think,  find  their  writings  auto- 
biographic. They  held  such  and  such  opinions,  he  may  declare,  as 
such  and  such  poems  show ;  but,  if  he  is  wise,  he  will  abstain  from 
determining  what  manner  of  men  they  were,  and  by  what  emotions 
they  were  governed.  I  do  not  pretend  to  account  for  their  reticence, 
which  can  hardly  be  considered  a  national  trait.  I  merely  mention 
it  to  deplore  it,  for  I  am  interested  in  knowing  the  inner  lives  of 


UNDER  THE  OAKS  AT  OAK  KNOLL. 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  127 

men  of  genius.  Mr.  Whittier's  poetiy  does  not  help  me  to  an  under- 
standing of  this  concealed  life  of  liis,  but  lie  hints  at  it,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  in  the  poem  entitled  "  Memories,"  which  lies  like  a  pearl 
among  the  lesser  jewels  scattered  over  his  legendary  and  didactic 
poems,  and  which  is  inexpressibly  beautiful  and  pathetic.  It  is  like 
a  palimpsest  whose  original  writing  has  been  effaced  that  some- 
thing later  might  be  copied  in  its  stead,  present  pains  of  memory 
over  the  departed  pleasures  of  hope,  lamentations  in  place  of  can- 
ticles. To  those  who  can  read  between  the  lines,  where  the  mys- 
teiy  is,  it  is  a  passport  into  the  uncreated,  or  destroyed,  world  of 
possibilities. 

Mr.  Whittier  is  given  to  the  writing  of  occasional  poems,  and,  if  he 
is  not  so  successful  in  this  journalistic  walk  of  verse  as  some  of  his 
contemporaries,  it  is  because  his  cleverness  is  not  equal  to  his  genius. 
When  he  does  succeed,  as  in  his  lines  on  "  Randolph  of  Roanoke,"  and 
in  "  Ichabod,"  he  ranks  among  the  greatest  masters  of  poetic  portrai- 
ture. A  great  man  sat  for  his  portrait  in  "  Ichabod  " — a  man  whom 
New  England  still  delights  to  honor  for  his  great  intellectual  endow- 
ments, but  who  fell  from  his  high  estate  because  he  dared  to  dift'er 
with  New  England  in  a  question  of  political  morals.  How  far  he  was 
right,  and  how  far  he  was  wrong,  is  a  problem  which  does  not  concern 
me.  I  leave  it  to  the  Muse  of  Histoiy,  who  is  less  hasty  in  reaching 
conclusions,  and  in  pronouncing  judgment,  than  the  more  impassioned 
Muse  of  Song.  I  content  myself  with  saying  that  Webster  disap- 
pointed the  moral  sense  of  New  England  by  the  stand  he  took  about 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  was  sternly  and  sadly  reprobated,  even 
by  his  admirers.  Mr.  Whittier  grieved  over  his  defection,  but  with  a 
noble  manliness  that  was  as  honorable  to  Webster  as  to  himself.  He 
was  too  great  to  revile  and  insult  him,  though  he  lamented  him  as  we 
lament  the  dead. 

*'  Of  all  we  loved  and  honored,  naught 
Save  power  remains — 
A  fallen  angel's  pride  of  thought, 
Still  strong  in  chains. 


128      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

"  All  else  is  gone  ;  from  those  great  eyes 
The  soul  is  fled  ; 
When  faith  is  lost,  when  honor  dies, 
The  man  is  dead  ! 

*'  Then,  pay  the  reverence  of  old  days 
To  his  dead  fame  j 
Walk  backward,  with  averted  gaze. 
And  hide  the  shame  ! " 

I  hardly  know  how  to  characterize  some  of  Mr.  Whittier's  poems, 
such,  for  example,  as  the  leading  poem  in  his  next  collection,  "The 
Chapel  of  the  Hermits  and  other  Poems"  (1852).  "The  Chapel  of 
the  Hermits  "  is  based  upon  an  incident  related  in  a  note  to  St.  Pierre's 
"  Etudes  de  la  Nature  " : 

''  We  arrived  at  the  habitation  of  the  hermits  a  little  before  they  sat  down  to 
their  table,  and  while  they  were  still  at  church.  J.  J.  Eousseau  proposed  to  me  to 
offer  up  our  devotions.  The  hermits  were  reciting  the  Litanies  of  Providence, 
which  are  remarkably  beautiful.  After  we  had  addressed  our  prayers  to  God,  and 
the  hermits  were  proceeding  to  the  refectory,  Eousseau  said  to  me,  with  his  heart 
->  overflowing,  *  At  this  moment  I  experience  what  is  said  in  the  Gospel :  "  Where 
two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them." 
There  is  here  a  feeling  of  peace  and  happiness  which  penetrates  the  soul.'  I  said, 
*  If  Fenelon  had  lived  you  would  have  been  a  Catholic'  He  exclaimed,  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  '  Oh  !  if  Fenelon  were  alive,  I  would  struggle  to  get  into  his  service, 
even  as  a  lackey  ! ' " 

I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  this  little  incident  is  too  slight  to 
base  a  poem  on ;  but  I  think  that  no  poem  based  on  it  is  likely  to 
make  a  mark  in  literature,  for,  no  matter  how  it  may  be  treated,  it 
still  remains  a  trifle.  Its  strongest  suggestion  is  the  contrast  aiforded 
by  the  character's  of  Rousseau  and  St.  Pierre,  and  the  dramatic  pro- 
priety of  the  opinions  which  they  utter,  and  which  certainly  ought  to 
be  rememberable.  I  do  not  feel  this  contrast  as  I  could  wish  in  Mr. 
Whittier's  poem,  and  I  am  not  impressed  by  the  conversation  of  his 
theologians.      The  art  of  saying  things,  which  is  so  conspicuous  in 


JOHN  QREENLEAF  WHITTIER.  129 

"Ichabod"  and  "Randolpli  of  Eoanoke,"  is  as  absent  here  as  it  is 
gloriously  present  in  the  poem  which  succeeds  it — "  Questions  of  Life  " 
— and  which  abounds  in  felicitous  thoughts  and  expressions.  The 
poet  questions  Nature  in  regard  to  himself,  but  obtains  no  answer. 
He  questions  men,  but  they  are  silent : 

*'  Alas  !  the  dead  retain  their  trust ; 
Dust  hath  no  answer  from  the  dust." 

Nothing  answers  him,  for  his  heart,  like  that  of  the  prophet,  hath 
gone  too  far  in  this  world,  and  he  thinketh  to  comprehend  the 
way  of  the  Most  High. 

"  Here  let  me  pause,  my  quest  forego  ; 
Enough  for  me  to  feel  and  know 
That  He  in  whom  the  cause  and  end, 
The  past  and  future,  meet  and  blend — 
"Who,  girt  with  his  immensities, 
Our  Yast  and  star-hung  system  sees 
Small  as  the  clustered  Pleiades — 
Moves  not  alone  the  heavenly  choirs. 
But  waves  the  spring-time's  grassy  spires ; 
Guards  not  archangel  feet  alone. 
But  deigns  to  guide  and  keep  my  own  ; 
Speaks  not  alone  the  words  of  fate 
Which  worlds  destroy,  and  worlds  create, 
But  whispers  in  my  spirit's  ear, 
In  tones  of  love,  or  warning  fear, 
A  language  none  beside  may  hear." 

The  ethical  or  moral  element  which  is  the  motive  and  inspiration 
of  such  poems  as  ^'  The  Chapel  of  the  Hermits  "  is  never  absent  for 
any  length  of  time  from  Mr.  Whittier's  poetry.  I  do  not  place  it 
among  high  poetic  endowments,  though  it  may  be  allied  to  them ;  nor 
do  I  think  it  is  always  wisely  employed  by  Mr.  Whittier.  If  there 
ever  was  a  time  when  poets  were  moral  teachers,  that  time  has  long 
since  past.     They  are  at  most  lay  preachers  now,  and  that  not  of  set 


130      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR   ELDER  POETS. 

purpose,  but  by  indirection.  Mr.  WHttier  did  not  perceive  this  as 
clearly  as  could  be  wished,  and  his  poetry  has  suffered  in  consequence. 
"  The  Hermit  of  the  Thebaid  " — a  little  apologue  in  his  next  collec- 
tion, "The  Panorama,  and  Other  Poems"  (1856) — is  an  example  in 
point.  The  poem  is  too  long  by  seven  stanzas,  the  stanzas  in  question 
being  those  which  open  the  poem,  to  which  they  are  prefixed  by  way 
of  text,  stating  in  different  forms  the  thesis  which  the  poem  is  ex- 
pected to  prove — in  other  words,  the  meaning  of  the  apologue.  Mr. 
Whittier  should  have  trusted  entirely  to  his  subject,  which  contained 
within  itself  all  his  readers  should  know ;  their  understanding  of  it 
did  not  concern  him,  but  themselves.  I  find  this  overmuchness  of  ex- 
planation in  other  American  poets,  but  never  in  Bryant,  whose  great- 
ness as  a  poetic  artist  has  never  been  fully  understood. 

"  The  Hermit  of  Thebaid  "  is  one  of  a  particular  class  of  Mr.  Whit- 
tier's  poems  which  are  nearly  faultless,  and  which  are  permanent  addi- 
tions to  the  ethical  poems  of  all  nations.  They  lend  such  value  as  they 
possess  to  the  writings  of  the  mystics  and  the  poets  of  the  East ;  and 
lucky  is  the  poet  who  finds  them  and  perceives  their  poetic  significance, 
as  Mr.  Whittier  does.  A  new  element  appears  in  this  collection  of  Mr. 
Whittier's  verse  in  "  The  Barefoot  Boy,"  an  exquisite  character  study 
which,  as  far  as  my  recollection  goes,  has  no  parallel  in  English  poetry. 
The  old  anti-slavery  element  is  here  in  a  new  form,  in  the  poem  entitled 
"  The  Haschish,"  which  is  an  admirable  piece  of  humorous  sarcasm : 

"  The  preacher  eats,  and  straight  appears 
His  Bible  in  a  new  translation  ; 
Its  angels  negro  overseers, 

And  Heaven  itself  a  snug  plantation ! 

"  The  man  of  peace,  about  whose  dreams 
The  sweet  millennial  angels  cluster, 
Tastes  the  mad  weed,  and  plots  and  schemes, 
A  raving  Cuban  filibuster  ! " 

It  is  not  given  to  many  poets  to  know  what  they  do  best,  and  the 
few  who  possess  that  knowledge  are  seldom  content  to  be  guided  by 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  131 

it.  The  weakness  of  modem  poets — or  one  of  their  weaknesses — ^is 
the  desire  to  Avrite  long  poems,  as  if  poetry  were  measured  by  quan- 
tity and  not  quality.  Another  weakness  is  a  studied  avoidance  of 
simple  every-day  themes.  Mr.  Whittier  has  mistaken  his  powers  as 
little  as  any  American  poet,  but  he  has  not  always  cultivated  them 
wisely,  or  he  would  have  written  ten  naiTative  poems  where  he  has 
written  one.  I  use  the  word  narrative  in  a  large  sense  as  covering  a 
class  of  poems  of  which  story-telling  is  the  chief  motive,  and  which 
directly  appeal  to  the  human  sympathies  of  their  readers.  Such  a 
poem  (to  draw  an  illustration  from  Mr.  Whittier)  is  the  touching 
ballad  of  "Cassandra  Southwick."  Another  is  "Barclay  of  Ury." 
Mr.  Whittier  is  the  first  American  poet,  I  believe,  who  was  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  inspiration  of  subjects  like  these,  and  they  have  amply 
rewarded  the  poetic  pains  he  has  bestowed  upon  them.  I  am  not  sure, 
indeed,  that  his  fame  will  not  ultimately  rest  upon  some  three  or  four 
of  them — say  upon  "Maud  MuUer,"  "Skipper  Ireson's  Ride,"  and 
"  Telling  the  Bees."  They  had  no  prototypes  in  American  poetry,  and, 
if  they  have  had  successoi*s,  these  successors  have  come  from  the  pen 
of  Mr.  Whittier,  who  is  never  so  much  himself  as  when  writing  narra- 
tive and  legendary  stories. 

Mr.  Whittier  is  one  of  the  few  American  poets  who  have  succeeded 
in  obtaining  the  suifrages  of  the  reading  public  and  of  the  literary 
class.  Men  of  letters  respect  his  work  for  its  sincerity,  simplicity,  and 
downright  manliness,  and  average  readers  of  poetry  respect  it  because 
they  can  understand  it.  There  is  not  a  grown  man  and  woman  in  the 
land  who  does  not  readily  enter  into  the  aspiration  and  discontent  of 
"  Maud  Muller,"  and  into  the  glowing  patriotism  of  "  Barbara  Friet- 
chie."  Whether  the  incident  which  is  the  inspiration  of  the  latter 
ever  occurred,  is  more  than  doubtful ;  nevertheless,  the  poem  is  one 
that  the  world  will  not  willingly  let  die.  The  reputation  of  such 
poems  is  immediate  and  permanent,  and  beyond  criticism,  favorable  or 
otherwise ;  the  touch  of  nature  in  them  is  beyond  all  art.  I  should 
never  think  of  comparing  "  Barbara  Frietchie "  with  Bryant's  "  O 
Mother  of  a  Mighty  Race,"  but  I  am  sure  that  it  has  a  thousand  read- 


132      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

ers  wlita*e  Bryant's  poem  has  one.  Bryant  seldom  reached  the  hearts 
of  his  countrymen,  but  his  best  poems  appealed  to  what  was  loftiest 
in  their  intellects. 

If  I  wished  to  give  an  intelligent  foreigner  an  idea  of  Mr.  Whit- 
tier's  genius,  and  an  idea  of  the  characteristics  of  American  poetry  at 


THE   VISTA    VIEW   AT    OAK   KNOLL. 


the  same  time,  I  should  ask  him  to  read  Mr.  Whittier's  "  Snow-bound '' 
(1865).  This  exquisite  poem  has  no  prototype  in  English  literature, 
unless  Burns's  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night "  be  one,  and  it  will  be  long, 
I  fear,  before  it  has  a  companion-piece.     It  can  be  fully  appreciated 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  133 

only  by  those  who  are  New  England  bom,  and  on  whose  heads  the 
snows  of  fifty  or  sixty  winters  have  fallen.  One  must  have  been 
snow-bound  in  order  to  recognize  the  faithfulness  of  Mr.  Whittier's 
pictures  of  winter  life  and  landscape,  and  to  enjoy  the  simple  pleas- 
ures of  a  country  homestead  in  a  great  snow-storm.  There  was  nothing 
to  do,  while  it  lasted,  but  to  keep  indoors,  and  nothing  to  do,  when  it 
had  ceased,  but  to  dig  one's  way  out  into  the  little  world  of  the  vil- 
lage again.  The  snow-bound  family  whom  he  describes  was  his  father's 
family,  who  are  clearly  set  before  us  in  their  different  individualities, 
and  their  conversation  is  such  as  they  no  doubt  indulged  in,  for  it  is 
thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the  time  and  the  place.  Father  Whittier 
told  stories  of  camping  on  the  wooded  side  of  Memphremagog,  of" 
idyllic  ease  beneath  the  hemlock  trees  of  St.  Francois,  and  of  moon- 
light dances  to  the  sound  of  a  violin,  and  similar  pleasures  of  memory. 
Mother  Whittier  (who  ran  the  new-knit  stocking-heel)  told  how  the 
Indian  hordes  came  down  on  Cocheco,  and  how  her  own  great-uncle 
bore  his  cruel  scalp-mark  to  fourscore.  Then  the  uncle  spoke  of  what 
he  had  seen  and  known  in  the  lore  of  woods  and  fields,  of  which  he 
was  a  loving  student.  The  unmarried  aunt  had  her  tales  of  huskings 
and  apple-bees,  of  summer  sails  and  sleigh-rides.  And  the  poet's 
sisters  were  there,  snow-bound  now,  alas,  in  "death's  eternal  cold." 
There,  too,  was  the  village  school-master,  whom  everybody  liked,  and 
who  could  turn  his  hand  to  anything.  They  were  a  pleasant  company, 
and  pleasantly  situated,  all  things  considered.  For,  while  the  north 
wind  roared  without,  the  red  logs  blazed  before  them,  and  the  flames 
roared  up  the  great  throat  of  the  chimney,  while  the  house-dog  laid 
his  drowsy  head  on  his  paws,  and  the  dark  silhouette  of  the  cat  was 
drawn  on  the  wall. 

"  And,  for  the  winter  fireside  meet, 
Between  the  andiron's  straddling  feet. 
The  mug  of  cider  simmered  slow, 
The  apples  sputtered  in  a  row. 
And,  there  at  hand,  the  basket  stood 
With  nuts  from  brown  October's  wood." 


134      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

The  materials  upon  which  "Snow-bound"  is  based  are  of  the 
slightest  order,  and  the  wonder  is  that  any  poet,  even  the  most  skillful 
one,  could  have  made  a  poem  out  of  them.  I  should  not  say  that  Mr. 
Whittier  was  a  skillful  poet,  but  he  has  made  a  poem  which  will  live, 
and  can  no  more  be  rivaled  by  any  winter  poetry  that  may  be  written 
hereafter  than  "  Thanatopsis  "  can  be  rivaled  as  a  meditation  on  the 
universality  of  death.  The  characters  in  this  little  idyl  are  carefully 
drawn,  and  the  quiet  of  the  homestead  during  the  storm  is  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  outdoor  bustle  which  succeeds  it.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence anywhere  that  the  poem  cost  a  moment's  labor ;  everything  is 
naturally  introduced,  and  the  reflections,  which  are  manly  and  pathetic, 
are  among  the  finest  that  Mr.  Whittier  has  ever  written.  "Snow- 
bound "  at  once  authenticated  itself  as  an  idyl  of  New  England  life 
and  manners. 

In  "The  Tent  on  the  Beach,  and  Other  Poems"  (1867),  we  had 
Mr.  Whittier  in  his  character  of  a  story-teller  again,  with  a  wider 
range  than  he  had  hitherto  sho^vn  in  his  choice  of  subjects.  He  added 
variety  to  the  tales  that  were  told  in  "  The  Tent  on  the  Beach"  by  a 
framework  of  verse  similar  to  that  employed  by  Mr.  Longfellow  in 
his  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn,"  but  he  added  nothing  to  the  poetic 
value  of  the  tales  themselves  by  this  framework,  or  by  the  conversa- 
tion which  his  summer  guests  held  in  the  intervals  of  narration.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  recognize  three  of  them,  Mr.  James  T.  Fields  being 
the  "  lettered  magnate  "  who  could 

"  well  the  market  value  tell 
Of  poet  and  philosopher"  ; 

Mr.  Whittier  himself  being  the  dreamer, 

"  Who,  with  a  mission  to  fulfill, 
Had  left  the  Muses'  haunts  to  turn 
The  crank  of  an  opinion  mill "  ; 

and  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  the  gentleman  whose  Arab  face  was  tanned 
by  tropic  suns  and  boreal  frost,  and  who 


JOHN  GREENLEAF   WHITTIER.  135 

"  In  idling  mood  had  from  him  hurled 
The  poor  squeezed  orange  of  the  world." 

The  literary  workmansMp  of  Mr.  Whittier  has  improved,  I  think, 
from  yeai'  to  year,  and  in  reading  his  last  volume  we  may  be  sure  that 
we  have  the  best  art  of  which  he  is  capable.  I  do  not  rank  him  high 
as  an  artist,  though  he  has  art  enough  to  answer  his  purposes  gener- 
ally. Poetry  seems  never  to  have  been  a  pursuit  with  him,  but  a 
charge  which  was  intrusted  to  him,  and  which  he  was  to  deliver  when 
the  spirit  moved  him,  well  or  ill,  as  it  happened,  but  honestly,  ear- 
nestly, and  prayerfully.  He  has  a  noble  vein  of  sacred  poetry  in  his 
nature,  and,  had  he  chosen,  might  have  enriched  the  world's  store  of 
hymnology  as  no  other  living  poet  could  have  done.  His  seriousness 
of  soul,  the  intense  morality  of  his  genius,  accounts,  I  think,  for  his 
defects  as  a  poetical  artist  in  such  poems  as  "  The  Chapel  of  the  Her- 
mits," for  example,  in  "Among  the  Hills,  and  Other  Poems"  (1868), 
in  "  Miriam,  and  Other  Poems  "  (1870),  and  in  "  The  Pennsylvanian  Pil- 
grim, and  Other  Poems"  (1872).  The  motives  of  these  poems,  especi- 
ally the  last,  seem  to  me  too  slight  for  the  superstructures  which  he 
had  builded  upon  and  around  them.  I  question,  indeed,  whether  he 
would  have  selected  Francis  Daniel  Pastorius  as  a  hero  if  he  had  not 
drawn  up  the  iirst  protest  made  in  America  by  a  religious  body 
against  negro  slavery.  That  Mr.  Whittier  has  written  a  charming 
poem  about  him  I  admit,  but  I  see  nothing  heroic  in  him,  though  he 
was  a  remarkable  man. 

What  I  like  best  in  Mr.  Whittier's  poetry  I  have  endeavored  to 
indicate,  though  I  have  by  no  means  consulted  my  liking  alone.  It 
has  been  my  aim,  as  it  was  certainly  my  business,  to  judge  his  work 
from  his  own  point  of  view — in  other  words,  to  put  myself  in  his 
place.  1  fear  I  have  not  succeeded  at  all  times.  I  know  I  have  not 
succeeded  as  well  as  he  would  have  done  had  he  analyzed  the  poetry 
of  Mr.  Longfellow,  say,  or  Mr.  Lowell.  He  is  a  remarkable  critic  of 
character,  as  he  proved  in  his  "  Randolph  of  Roanoke,"  in  "  Ichabod," 
in  "Summer,"  and  in  the  poem  entitled  "My  Namesake,"  a  keen, 


136      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

searching  examination  of  his  mental  qualities  and  of  the  intention  and 
scope  of  his  poetry.  It  is  more  accurate  and  more  comprehensive  than 
any  criticism  on  his  genius  that  I  can  hope  to  write,  and  it  states,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  what  will  be  the  just  verdict  of  Posterity.  No  liv- 
ing poet — certainly  no  living  American  poet — can  more  safely  trust 
his  work  and  his  memory  to  the  keeping  of  that  august  Power  than 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 


MURMURING    BROOKS. 


J 


^y{^     /(X^i^^    ^^^1.^  /t^/^9^     T^Z^  ~'^Zay 

CpCjQ^^  y/z,a^L<^  'c^^^>l^  Ce^^  d2^<^     J^/:^    y^Z^^^Zu^ , 
t^^f^  y^t^^  ^n^^     '^r-^j'.^i^^^ie^^    /^7^^^y<^ 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 


Dr.  Holmes  has 
so  often  described  his 
own  homes  and  haunts 
that  a  biographer  has 
only  the  agreeable  la- 
bor of  reading  again 
the  pages  that  pleased 
him  when  they  were 
new,  and  culling  from 
them  the  facts  that  he 
needs,  wreathed  round, 
as  they  are,  with  the 
arabesques  and  gro- 
tesques of  the  laugh- 
ing poet's  fancy.  For 
our  Yankee  Lucilius 
has  gone  beyond  the 
copy  set  him  by  Horace's  predecessor,  who  exposed  his  whole  life 
to  view,  as  if  it  were  depicted  on  a  memorial  w  indow. 

^'  Ille,  velut  fidis  arcana  sodalibus,  olim 
Credebat  lihris  ;  neque,  si  male  cesserat,  usquam 
Decurrens  alio,  neque  si  bene :  quo  fit  ut  omnis 
Votiva  pateat  veluti  descripta  iabella 
Vita  senis." 


STAIRWAY    IN    THE    OLD    HOLMES   MANSION. 


Dr.  Holmes  has  not  only  set  up  this  votive  tablet  in  public  places, 
but  has  had  the  chapel-w^indows  heliotyped,  and  has  sent  the  copies 


18 


136      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

over  tlie  whole  world  wherever  the  "  Atlantic  "  is  read,  or  the  literary 
renown  of  Boston  is  known.  Nay,  he  was  doing  this  before  there  was 
any  "  Atlantic,"  except  the  unprinted  salt-water  magazine  of  that  name, 
and  almost  from  the  moment  that  he  began  to  recite  verses  in  pub- 
lic, which  was  very  long  ago.  The  first  that  made  him  known,  he 
says,  "I  wi'ote  with  a  pencil  in  the  White  Chamber,  stans pede  in  uno, 
pretty  nearly  " — meaning  "  Old  Ironsides,"  which  was  written  about 
1830  in  the  old  gambrel-roofed  house  on  Cambridge  Common,  where 
he  was  born,  August  29,  1809.  And  these  verses  he  recited  in  his 
first  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem,  read  at  Harvard  College  in  August,  1836, 
pointing,  no  doubt,  toward  his  father's  parsonage  house,  as  he  stood  in 
the  neighboring  church,  and  said : 

"  From  yon  lone  attic,  on  a  summer's  morn, 
He  mocked  the  spoilers  with  his  school-boy  scorn." 

Six  and  thirty  years  afterward,  when  the  university  bought  this 
old  parsonage  house.  Dr.  Holmes  described  it  at  length  in  prose,  as  he 
had  often  done  before  in  detail.  It  still  stands,  little  changed  in  out- 
ward form  since  the  days  when  Ward  and  Warren,  Putnam  and  Wash- 
ington occupied  or  visited  it  in  1775,  when  it  was  the  head-quarters  of 
the  American  army  then  besieging  Boston,  and  when  Prescott  marched 
away  from  it  toward  Bunker  Hill,  and  Benedict  Arnold  received  there 
his  first  military  commission. 

Unlike  many  of  these  gambrel-roofed  houses  which  are  seen  all 
over  New  England,  the  birthplace  of  Dr.  Holmes  was  not  built  for 
the  manse  of  the  parish  minister — as  was  the  Emerson  and  Ripley  par- 
sonage house  at  Concord — but  was  first  the  residence  of  a  prosperous 
tailor,  and  then  of  a  wealthy  farmer,  Jonathan  Hastings,  whom  the 
college  students  in  Sam  Adams's  day  used  to  call  "  Yankee  Jont,"  and 
whose  son  was  the  college  steward  in  1775.  The  Hastings  family 
occupied  the  house  till  it  was  sold  to  the  clergy,  its  first  clerical  occu- 
pant being  Eliphalet  Pearson,  the  Hebrew  ^professor,  in  1792,  from 
whom  it  passed,  about  1807,  into  the  hands  of  the  Eeverend  Abiel 
Holmes,  father  of  the  poet,  and  himself  not  without  pretensions  to 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  139 

that  name.  For  did  not  Dr.  Holmes,  tlie  parson,  in  1804,  publisli  in 
tlie  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  of  which  he 
was  a  distinguished  member  (as  his  son  is),  the  translation  of  a  Latin 
poem  by  Stephen  Parmenius,  of  Buda,  in  celebration  of  the  voyage  of 
Raleigh's  half-brother,  "  the  illustrious  and  valiant  knight.  Sir  Hum- 
phrey Gilbert "  ?  This  Dr.  Holmes  was  the  son  of  a  Connecticut  Dr. 
Holmes,  a  physician  at  Woodstock,  who  had  first  been  a  captain  in 
the  French  and  Indian  War,  and  afterward  a  surgeon  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary army.  The  Reverend  Abiel  Holmes  was  born  in  1763, 
graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1783,  alternated  between  preaching  in 
Georgia  and  tutoring  in  Yale  College  until  1791,  and  in  1792  was  set- 
tled in  the  ministry  at  Cambridge,  his  parish  including  Harvard  Col- 
lege, whose  president  and  professors  were  among  his  hearers  for  many 
years.  In  1790  he  married  Mary,  the  daughter  of  President  Stiles, 
of  Yale,  whose  biographer  he  became  a  few  years  later,  when  that 
learned  and  good  man  died.  Mrs.  Holmes  had  died  before  her  father, 
and  in  1801  Mr.  Holmes  was  married  again  to  Sarah  Wendell,  the 
daughter  of  Judge  Oliver  Wendell,  who  became  the  mother  of  all  his 
children.  The  wife  of  Oliver  Wendell  was  Mary  Jackson,  daughter 
of  Dorothy  Quincy,  the  lady  celebrated  by  Dr.  Holmes  in  his  poem, 
"  Dorothy  Q."  Our  illustration  of  the  portrait  shows  the  rent  from 
an  English  rapier,  mentioned  in  the  poem : 

"Look  !  there's  a  rent  the  light  shines  through, 
Dark  with  a  century's  fringe  of  dust — 
That  was  a  Red-coat's  rapier  thrust ! 
Such  is  the  tale  the  lady  old, 
Dorothy's  daughter's  daughter,  told. 

The  oldest  son  was  named  for  his  grandfather,  Wendell,  who 
in  his  turn  was  descended  from  various  Wendells,  Olivers,  Quin- 
cys,  Bradstreets,  etc.,  the  colonial  and  provincial  aristocracy  of  Bos- 
ton. The  original  Wendell  was  a  Dutchman  from  Albany,  and  the 
original  Bradstreet  was  the  old  charter  governor,  Simon  Bradstreet, 
whose  wife,  Anne  Dudley,  daughter  of   Governor  Dudley,  was  the 


140      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

first  New  England  poetess,  and  the  ancestress  of  a  large  brood  of 
literary  descendants — among  them  the  Channings,  Danas,  and  Phil- 
lipses.  Judge  Wendell  bought  the  house  fpr  his  daughter,  Mrs. 
Holmes ;  at  his  death,  in  1818,  bequeathed  it  to  her,  and  she  continued 
to  live  in  it  until  her  death.  Dr.  Holmes,  her  husband,  died  in  1837, 
when  his  famous  son  was  but  twenty-six  old ;  but  even  then  he  had 
published  his  first  volume  of  poems,  and  had  an  established  literary 
reputation,  though  it  did  not  extend  far  beyond  Cambridge  and  Bos- 
ton. He  took  his  doctor's  degree  in  medicine  in  1836,  was  made 
professor  of  anatomy  at  Dartmouth  College  in  1838,  and  at  Harvard 
College  in  1847;  but  his  degrees  in  literature  were  taken  much 
earlier. 

Though  born  in  a  community  then  tending  strongly  to  Arminianism 
and  Unitarianism,  and  himself  in  later  years  one  of  the  most  advanced 
liberals  in  theology,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  bred  a  Calvinist  of 
the  stricter  sort,  and,  therefore,  when  he  left  the  paternal  gambrel  roof 
to  go  to  school,  he  was  sent  to  Andover,  because  Andover  was  "  ortho- 
dox," rather  than  to  Exeter,  where  Dr.  Abbot,  with  Arminian  tenden- 
cies, was  educating  the  future  statesmen  and  divines  of  New  England. 
Eliphalet  Pearson,  the  Hebrew  professor  of  Cambridge,  who  aspired 
to  be  the  college  president,  as  Dr.  Holmes  hints,  had  shaken  off  the 
Socinian  dust  from  his  feet  when  the  election  of  Dr.  Ware  to  a  Har- 
vard professorship  showed  the  Calvinists  they  could  no  longer  control 
the  college,  and  had  gone  back  to  Andover  to  take  part  in  the  newly- 
opened  theological  school  there,  which  soon  grew  to  be  more  impor- 
tant  than  the  Phillips  Academy  in  the  same  town.  It  was  to  the  latter 
that  Dr.  Holmes,  the  Cambridge  minister,  sent  his  son  Wendell  soon 
after  1820,  hoping,  perhaps,  that,  after  his  graduation  there  and  at  col- 
lege, he  would  return  to  Andover  to  study  theology.  But  the  boy 
had  seen  too  much  of  ministers  in  his  father's  parsonage  to  have  a  long- 
ing for  the  clerical  profession.  "  I  remember  one  in  particular,"  he 
says,  "  who  twitted  me  so  with  my  blessings  as  a  Christian  child,  and 
whined  so  to  me  about  the  naked  black  children,  that  he  did  more 
in  that  one  day  to  make  me  a  heathen  than  he  had  ever  done  in  a 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  141 

month  to  make  a  Christian  out  of  an  infant  Hottentot.  I  might  have 
been  a  minister  myself,  for  aught  I  know,  if  this  clergyman  had  not 
looked  and  talked  so  like  an  undertaker."  No  doubt  the  Reverend 
Abiel  Holmes,  who  was  a  true  type  of  the  New  England  orthodox 
minister,  would  have  given  much  gold,  and  did  offer  many  prayers, 
that  his  son  should  also  preach  and  pray  from  a  wooden  pulpit  in  a 
yellow  meeting-house,  and  sit  on  the  platform  at  college  commence- 


BIRTHPLACE    OF    DOCTOR    HOLMES,    CAMBRIDGE,    MASS. 


ments  along  with  the  "  reverendis  eccUsice  passim  pastoribus,^''  so  affec- 
tionately appealed  to  on  such  occasions  by  the  graduating  class.  But 
the  reaction  against  ministers  had  already  set  in  when  the  celebrated 
class  of  1829  left  college,  and  Wendell  Holmes,  after  some  little  delay, 
chose  medicine  for  his  profession,  studied  it  awhile  in  Cambridge  and 
Boston,  and  in  1832  went  to  Europe  to  pursue  the  same  studies  there, 
at  Paris  and  elsewhere.  Before  he  left  home — nay,  before  he  left 
Andover,  in  1825,  at  the  age  of  sixteen — he  had  courted  the  muses. 


142      THE  HO  ME 8  AND  HAUNT8   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

The  volume  of  his  collected  poems  now  contains,  modestly  relegated 
to  its  last  page,  a  school-boy  exercise  written  at  Andover  when  he  was 
fifteen,  which  disclosed  even  at  that  age  his  fluency  in  versification. 
It  is  a  translation  into  the  measure  of  Pope  and  Goldsmith  of  those 
lines  in  the  First  Book  of  Virgil's  "^neid,"  in  which  Neptune  is 
described  as  quelling  the  storm  that  Juno  had  raised  against  the  Tro- 
jan fleet.  How  smoothly  flow  these  orders  of  the  indignant  god  to 
the  boisterous  Zephyrus  and  Eurus ! 

*'  Is  this  your  glory  in  a  noble  line, 
To  leave  your  confines  and  to  ravage  mine  ? 
Whom  I — but  let  these  troubled  waves  subside — 
Another  tempest  and  I'll  quell  your  pride  ! 
Go  bear  our  message  to  your  master's  ear, 
That  wide  as  ocean  I  am  despot  here  ; 
Let  him  sit  monarch  in  his  barren  caves  ! 
I  wield  the  trident  and  control  the  waves." 

This  is  a  lively  sea-piece,  as  Virgil  "wrote  it,  and  as  the  young  poet 
translated  it ;  and  so  was  the  first  original  poem  of  Wendell  Holmes 
that  attracted  notice — ^his  verses  on  the  frigate  Constitution — "  Old 
Ironsides  " — which  he  wrote  and  sent  to  the  Boston  "  Advertiser  "  in* 
1830,  when  it  was  proposed  to  break  up  the  old  vessel  at  the  Charles- 
town  Navy-yard,  within  cannon  sound  of  the  Cambridge  parsonage. 
The  collegian  protested  against  this  desecration  of  a  national  vessel 
that  had  been  the  first  to  make  an  English  ship  strike  her  flag,  and 
thus  pictured  the  now  forgotten  fight  between  the  Constitution  and 
the  Guerriere : 

"  Her  deck,  once  red  with  heroes'  blood. 

Where  knelt  the  vanquished  foe, 
When  winds  were  hurrying  o'er  the  flood. 

And  waves  were  white  below, 
No  more  shall  feel  the  victor's  tread. 

Or  know  the  conquered  knee  ; 
The  harpies  of  the  shore  shall  pluck 

The  eagle  of  the  sea  ! " 


OLIVER    WENDELL  HOLMES.  143 

Other  verses,  serious  or  humorous,  or  a  mixture  of  the  two,  soon 
followed  the  first  success — among  them  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  which  still 
ranks  as  one  of  Holmes's  best  poems.  In  it  occur  those  lines  which 
the  neighboring  church-yard,  seen  from  his  attic  window  every  day  of 
his  life  in  the  gambrel-roofed  house,  might  well  suggest : 

"  The  mossy  marbles  rest 
On  the  lips  that  he  has  prest 

In  their  bloom. 
And  the  names  he  loved  to  hear 
Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 

On  the  tomb." 

In  these  early  pieces,  and  in  the  poem  of  1836,  whose  subject  is 
"  Poetry,"  we  see  for  once  a  contradiction  of  that  saying  of  Dryden's 
in  his  pathetic  elegy  on  his  young  disciple,  Oldham : 

"  0  early  ripe  !  to  thy  abundant  store 
What  could  advancing  age  have  added  more  ? 
It  might  {what  nature  7iever  gives  the  young) 
Have  taught  the  numbers  of  thy  native  tongue." 

More  true  to  young  Holmes's  case  is  that  couplet  of  Pope  concern- 
ing himself  and  his  precocious  poetry : 

*'  As  yet  a  child,  nor  yet  a  fool  to  fame, 
I  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came." 

Easy  publication  was  found  in  "  The  Collegian  "  and  other  transi- 
tory periodicals  for  these  early  verses,  so  easily  written,  and  they  soon 
acquired  the  popularity  they  have  never  lost.  The  finer  passages  in 
them  were  slower  in  coming  to  the  appreciation  of  the  wise ;  but  in 
due  time  Lowell,  in  the  "  Fable  for  Critics,"  set  the  stamp  of  approval 
on  Holmes's  description  of  Rouget  de  L'Isle  composing  the  Marseil- 
laise, ending  with  that  vigorous  couplet, 

"  His  taper  faded  ;  and  the  morning  gales 
Swept  through  the  world  the  war-song  of  Marseilles." 


144      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

There  is  another  passage  in  the  same  "Phi  Beta"  poem  of  1836 
which  shows  how  well  the  young  poet  had  made  his  observations  both 
in  Europe  and  America ;  it  is  this : 

"  On  other  shores,  above  their  moldering  towns. 
In  sullen  pomp  the  tall  cathedral  frowns. 
Pride  in  its  aisles  and  paupers  at  the  door. 
Which  feeds  the  beggars  whom  it  fleeced  of  yore. 
Simple  and  frail,  our  lowly  temples  throw 
Their  slender  shadows  on  the  paths  below  ; 
Scarce  steal  the  winds  that  sweep  her  woodland  tracks 
The  larch's  perfume  from  the  settler's  axe. 
Ere,  like  a  vision  of  the  morning  air. 
His  slight-framed  steeple  marks  the  house  of  prayer ; 
Its  planks  all  reeking  and  its  paint  undried. 
Its  rafters  sprouting  on  the  shady  side, 
It  sheds  the  raindrops  from  its  shingled  eaves 
Ere  its  green  brothers  once  have  changed  their  leaves." 

Of  the  European  tour,  as  Dr.  Holmes  made  it  in  the  years  when 
he  was  fitting  himself  for  his  doctor's  degree  in  the  hospitals  and  lec- 
ture-rooms of  Paris  and  Edinburgh,  we  find  many  memorials  scattered 
through  his  poems  and  prose  works.  He  describes  now  a  scene  which 
he  saw  in  Paris,  then  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  aqueduct,  or  some  English 
or  Scotch  incident,  or  what  happened  to  him  when  quarantined  at 
Marseilles;  but  otherwise  little  is  known  of  those  years  from  1832  to 
1835.  They  were  gay,  but  not  idle  years;  indeed,  idleness  can  never 
be  associated  with  so  lively  a  person,  and  few  men  have,  in  fact,  been 
more  industrious.  His  chosen  profession  did  not  bring  him  a  great 
practice,  but  he  passed  so  soon  into  the  duties  of  a  medical  professor 
that  there  was  not  much  room  for  practice  to  grow  up.  Perhaps,  too, 
there  was  some  distrust  of  his  brilliancy,  as  he  intimates  in  a  passage 
that  yet  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously. 

*'  Besides — my  prospects — don't  you  know  that  people  won't  employ 
A  man  that  wrongs  his  manliness  by  laughing  like  a  boy  ? 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  145 

And  suspect  the  azure  blossom  that  unfolds  upon  a  shoot. 
As  if  wisdom's  old  potato  could  not  flourish  at  its  root  ? 
It's  a  vastly  pleasing  prospect,  when  you're  screwing  out  a  laugh. 
That  your  very  next  year's  income  is  diminished  by  a  half, 
And  a  little  boy  trips  barefoot  that  Pegasus  may  go. 
And  the  baby's  milk  is  watered  that  your  Helicon  may  flow  ! 
.  So  I  think  I  will  not  go  with  you  to  hear  the  toasts  and  speeches. 
But  stick  to  old  Montgomery  Place  and  have  some  pig  and  peaches." 

"  Old  Montgomery  Place  "  is  a  little  court  running  out  of  Tremont 
Street,  in  Boston,  not  far  from  that  State  House  whicli  is  the  Hub  of 
the  Universe,  and  still  nearer  to  the  Music  Hall  and  the  Great  Organ, 
which  used  to  be  the  boast  of  Boston,  and  which  Dr.  Holmes  so  lov- 
ingly described  in  the  "  Atlantic."  From  the  house  on  Montgomery 
Place,  had  he  staid  there  long  enough,  he  might  have  heard  this  organ 
playing,  but  he  moved  out  of  it  about  the  time  Mr.  Lowell,  in  1857, 
called  upon  him  to  aid  in  the  magazine  work  of  the  "  Atlantic."  In  the 
first  of  those  books  which  appeared  serially  in  the  Boston  "  Monthly  " 
from  1857  to  1872— the  "Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table"— Dr. 
Holmes  gives  some  account  of  the  many  mansions  in  which  he  had 
lived,  and,  first,  of  this  Montgomery  Place  dwelling-house,  at  the  left 
hand,  next  the  farther  comer,  where  he  lived,  as  he  says,  "  not  twenty 
years,  but  pretty  near  it."  It  was  his  first  home  after  leaving  the  par- 
sonage at  Cambridge,  "svith  the  elms  and  lilacs  about  it ;  in  it  all  his 
children  were  bom,  and  established  fame  was  won.  "When  he  en- 
tered that  door,  two  shadows  glided  over  the  threshold ;  five  lingered 
in  the  doorway  when  he  passed  through  it  for  the  last  time,  and  one 
of  the  shadows  was  claimed  by  its  owner  to  be  longer  than  his  own. 
What  changes  he  saw  in  that  quiet  place !  Death  rained  through 
every  roof  but  his ;  children  came  into  life,  grew  to  maturity,  wedded, 
faded  away,  threw  themselves  away;  the  whole  drama  of  life  Avas 
played  in  that  stock  company's  theater  of  a  dozen  houses,  one  of  which 
was  his,  and  no  deep  sorrow  or  severe  calamity  ever  entered  his  dwell- 
ing in  that  little  court  where  he  lived  in  gay  loneliness  so  long." 
This  Boston  home  was  his  abiding  place,  but  each  year,  fi*om  1838  on- 

19 


J 


146      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

ward,  lie  went  up  among  the  New  Hampsliire  hills  to  give  medical 
lectures  at  Dartmouth  College,  in  the  pleasant  village  of  Hanover,  on 
the  Connecticut.  This  river  he  describes,  "where  it  comes  loitering 
down  from  its  mountain  fastnesses  like  a  great  lord,  swallowing  up 
the  small  proprietary  rivulets  very  quietly  as  it  goes  " ;  and  also  the 


PORTRAIT    OF   DOROTHY    QUINCY    ("  DOROTHY    Q."),    SHOWING    INJURIES    RECEIVED    FROM    AN    ENGLISH 
RAPIER    DURING    THE    REVOLUTION. 


inn  where  he  sojourned  during  his  lectures,  "  that  caravansary  on  the 
banks  of  the  stream,  where  Ledyard  launched  his  log  canoe,  and  the 
jovial  old  Colonel  used  to  lead  the  Commencement  processions,  where 
blue  Ascutney  looked  down  from  the  far  distance."  Later  on  in  his 
early  career  as  a  medical  professor  he  seems  to  have  given  lectures,  too. 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  147 

at  the  Berkshire  Medical  School  in  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  and  for 
some  years,  for  this  or  other  reasons,  he  fixed  his  summer  residence  in 
that  town,  not  far  from  where  Hawthorne  was  then  living  at  Lenox. 
Hawthorne  had  before  this  seen  the  genius  of  Holmes,  and  in  his  one 
contribution  to  Lowell's  magazine,  the  "Pioneer,"  in  1843,  the  Concord 
romancer  had  turned  a  period  with  the  young  professor's  name.  In 
his  "Hall  of  Fantasy"  among  the  poets  he  saw  some  "talking  in 
groups,  with  a  liveliness  of  expression,  or  ready  smile,  and  a  light  in- 
tellectual laughter,  which  showed  how  rapidly  the  shafts  of  wit  were 
glancing  to  and  fro  among  them.  In  the  most  vivacious  of  these," 
says  Hawthorne,  "  I  recognized  Holmes " ;  and  in  this  portraiture  he 
shows  how  well,  even  then,  he  understood  the  lively,  social,  clubable 
Bostonian.  This  vivacity  has  never  deserted  Holmes,  and  attracts  the 
notice  of  all  who  meet  him  for  the  first  time.  Thus  the  late  Dr. 
Appleton,  an  English  metaphysician  and  Oxford  scholar,  when  he 
visited  Boston,  in  1875,  dined  with  the  Saturday  Club,  of  which 
Holmes  was  one  of  the  chief  wits,  and  was  struck  with  his  bird-like 
vivacity.  He  remembered,  too,  what  the  stammering  Charles  Kings- 
ley  had  said  at  finding  himself  quite  out-talked  by  Holmes  a  few  years 
earlier. 

In  this  "  Hall  of  Fantasy,"  which  corresponded,  after  a  fashion,  to 
that  imagined  by  Hawthorne,  Dr.  Appleton  met  Emerson,  Lowell, 
Holmes,  Peirce,  Howells,  and  Mark  Twain,  and  thus  records  his  im- 
pressions of  Holmes  in  a  blunt  English  manner ; 

"  Dr.  Holmes  was  highly  talkative  and  agreeable ;  he  converses  very 
much  like  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table — wittily,  and  in  a 
literary  way,  but,  perhaps,  with  too  great  an  infusion  of  physiological 
and  medical  metaphor.  He  is  a  little  deaf,  and  has  a  mouth  like  the 
beak  of  a  bird ;  indeed,  he  is,  with  his  small  body  and  quick  move- 
ments, very  like  a  bird  in  his  general  aspect.  When  poor  Kingsley 
was  in  Boston  he  met  Holmes,  who  came  in,  frisked  about  and  talked 
incessantly,  Kingsley  intervening  with  a  few  words  only  occasionally. 
At  last  Holmes  whisked  himself  away,  saying,  "  And  now  I  must  go." 
"  He  is  an  insp-sp-sp-ired  j-j-j-h-ack-daw,"  said  Kingsley." 


J 


148      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

This  smart  saying  of  the  Englisliuian  reminds  one  of  Goldsmith, 
who  "  wrote  like  an  angel  and  talked  like  poor  Poll,"  more  than  of 
Holmes,  who  is  a  brilliant  talker,  flashing  with  wit,  but,  like  most 
wits,  not  knowing  exactly  when  to  leave  off.  In  poetry  he  is  the  legiti- 
mate successor  of  Goldsmith,  but  in  prose  he  has  a  manner  of  his 
own,  and  in  conversation  he  is  worthy  to  be  matched  with  the  best 
diners-out  in  England.  His  good  sayings  are  innumerable,  nor  have 
they  all  got  into  his  books,  in  spite  of  the  constant  temptation  offered 
to  a  writer  who  has  been  so  much  in  demand.  At  this  same  Saturday 
Club,  years  before,  as  one  of  his  companions  was  setting  forth  for  a 
drive  of  twenty  miles  into  the  country.  Dr.  Holmes  asked  him  to  take 
a  glass  of  punch  before  going,  which  was  declined.  "  Do,"  said  the 
wit ;  "  it  shortens  the  distance  and  doubles  the  prospect." 

But  to  return  to  the  Pittsfield  summer  abode  "  up  among  those 
hills  that  shut  in  the  amber-flowing  Housatonic,  in  the  home  overlook- 
ing the  winding  stream,  and  the  smooth,  flat  meadow ;  looked  down 
upon  by  wild  hills,  where  the  tracks  of  bears  and  catamounts  may  yet 
sometimes  be  seen  upon  the  winter  snow."  These  are  the  words  of 
the  Autocrat,  depicting  "  the  maple-shadowed  plains  of  Berkshire," 
near  which  at  that  time  lived  not  only  Hawthorne,  but  Herman  Mel- 
ville, and  Miss  Sedgwick,  and  Fanny  Kemble,  while  occasionally  Bry- 
ant and  EUery  Channing,  from  New  York  and  Concord,  found  their 
way  to  the  Lenox  and  Stockbridge  hills.  Dr.  Holmes  could  not  long 
live  anywhere  except  among  men  and  women  of  culture ;  the  solitude 
of  Nature  had  little  charm  for  him  unless  his  friends  were  near  him ; 
but,  wherever  he  has  dwelt,  he  has  paid  the  local  dues  by  writing 
occasional  poems  for  the  festive  seasons.  So  at  Pittsfleld,  in  1849,  he 
read  a  poem  on  "  The  Plowman,"  at  the  Berkshire  cattle  show  dinner 
in  October,  and  in  it  made  his  sketch  of  the  Pittsfield  plo wing-team : 

''  Clear  the  brown  path  to  meet  his  colter's  gleam  ! 
Lo  !  on  he  comes  behind  his  smoking  team  ; 
Still  where  he  treads  the  stubborn  clods  divide, 
The  smooth,  fresh  furrow  opens  deep  and  wide  ; 


OLIVER   WENDELL  H0LME8.  149 

Matted  and  dense  the  tangled  turf  upheaves. 
Mellow  and  dark  the  ridgy  cornfield  cleaves  ; 
Through  the  moist  valley,  clogged  with  oozing  clay. 
The  patient  convoy  breaks  its  destined  way ; 
At  every  turn  the  loosening  chains  resound. 
The  swinging  plowshare  circles  glistening  round. 
Till  the  wide  field  one  billowy  waste  appears. 
And  wearied  hands  unbind  the  panting  steers." 

This  is  a  perfect  picture  of  tlie  Berkshire  farmer  of  thirty  years 
ago,  and  of  the  land  which  he  tilled  then  and  now.  There  is  more  of 
this  poetic  landscape  in  another  of  the  Pittsfield  poems,  read  at  the 
dedication  of  the  village  cemetery  in  September,  1850.  In  that  gar- 
den of  graves  he  says  the  plowman  shall  toil  no  longer,  though  once 
his  furrow  there  uncovered  the  Indian  aiTow-head : 

"  Still  on  its  slopes  the  plowman's  ridges  show 
The  pointed  flints  that  left  his  fatal  bow. 
Chipped  with  rough  art  and  slow  barbarian  toil — 
Last  of  his  wrecks  that  strews  the  alien  soil. 

No  more,  when  April  sheds  her  fitful  rain. 
The  sower's  hand  shall  cast  its  flying  grain  ; 
No  more,  when  Autumn  strews  the  flaming  leaves, 
The  reaper's  band  shall  gird  its  yellow  sheaves. 
For  there  alike  the  circling  seasons  flow. 
Till  the  first  blossoms  heave  the  latest  snow." 

You  might  almost  fancy  Goldsmith  transported  to  Massachusetts 
and  writing  such  lines  as  these,  with  a  little  more  antithesis  than  when 
he  pictured  the  "  Deserted  Village,"  but  with  the  same  observant  eye 
and  tender  heart.  Like  Goldsmith,  Dr.  Holmes  had  a  traditional  and 
ancestral  interest  in  the  scenery  he  described.  The  township  of  Pon- 
toosuc,  now  Pittsfield,  was  bought  by  his  great  grandfather,  Jacob 
Wendell,  about  1734,  including  24,000  acres,  and  Dr.  Holmes's  mother, 
the  grandchild  of  Jacob  Wendell  (who  was  bom  at  Albany  in  1691, 
but  removed  to  Boston  and  married  the  daughter  of  Dr.  James  Oliver), 


150      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 


seems  to  have  retained  a  slight  family  interest  in  the  remains  of  this 
purchase.  Her  son  relates  that  every  year,  in  his  boyhood,  his  father, 
Parson  Holmes,  would  have  his  horse  and  chaise  harnessed  up,  and 

set  forth  with  his  wife  on  a 
fortnight's  excursion  to  the 
Berkshire  hills,  whither,  to 
be  sure,  the  young  poet  nev- 
er accompanied  them.  Nor 
did  he  visit  Albany  or  Pitts- 
field  till  after  he  had  re- 
turned from  Europe,  sail- 
ing down  the  Rhine  before 
he  sailed  up  the  Hudson 
or  floated  in  his  boat  on 
the  Housatonic.  But  when 
he  saw  the  Wendell  acres, 
after  his  marriage  in  1840, 
he  coveted  the  possession 
of  a  small  part  thereof,  and 
so  established  himself  for 
half  the  year  at  what  he 
christened  "  Canoe  Place," 
in  the  meadows  of  the 
Housatonic.  Perhaps  the 
river's  name  attracted  him, 
as  it  did  the  two  boys, 
Lothrop  Motley  and  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  when  the  fu- 
ture historian  of  Holland 
began  in  Boston  his  first 
novel,  at  the  age  of  eleven. 
"I  remember,"  writes  Mr. 
Phillips  to  his  cousin,  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  "that  Motley's 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES,  151 

novel  opened  not  witli  one  solitary  horseman,  but  witli  two,  riding 
up  to  an  inn  in  the  valley  of  the  Housatonic.  Neither  of  us  had  ever 
seen  the  Housatonic,  but  it  sounded  grand  and  romantic." 

It  is  worth  mentioning  here  that  Wendell  Holmes,  like  his  kins- 
man, Wendell  Phillips,  at  first  studied  law  after  leaving  college,  and 
that  young  Motley,  who  was  then  at  the  same  college,  was,  like 
Holmes,  a  contributor  to  the  "  Collegian,"  a  lively  Cambridge  maga- 
zine, edited  by  John  O.  Sargent.  In  1833,  before  going  abroad  to 
study  medicine,  Wendell  Holmes  united  with  Epes  Sargent,  and  the 
brother-in-law  of  Motley,  Park  Benjamin,  in  writing  a  gift-book,  called 
the  "  Harbinger,"  for  the  benefit  of  Dr.  Howe's  Blind  Asylum,  then  in 
its  infancy ;  and  forty-three  years  afterward  Dr.  Holmes  Joined  in  pay- 
ing funeral  honors  to  Dr.  Howe,  and  wrote  a  poem  recounting  the 
achievements  of  that  philanthropist.  After  returning  from  Europe, 
and  while  beginning  the  practice  of  medicine  in  Boston,  Dr.  Holmes 
met  Motley  often  at  the  home  of  Park  Benjamin  in  Temple  Place,  and 
their  association  became  so  intimate  that  Holmes,  after  Motley's  death, 
was  his  friend's  biographer  for  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  of 
which  they  were  both  members.  In  these  years  of  early  manhood, 
too.  Holmes  made  the  acquaintance  of  Charles  Sumner.  The  names 
of  these  illustrious  Bostonians — Sumner,  Howe,  Phillips,  and  Motley — 
recall  the  noble  society  which  it  was  then  possible  to  find  in  that  city, 
and  also  suggest  some  mention  of  the  part  taken  by  Dr.  Holmes  in  the 
contest  with  slavery,  where  Phillips,  Sumner,  and  Howe  were  so  con- 
spicuous. 

Holmes  wrote  of  Sumner  as  he  saw  him  in  1836-37:  "He  was 
an  amiable,  blameless  young  man ;  pleasant,  affable,  cheerful,  with  lit- 
tle imagination,  wit,  or  sense  of  humor.  Anything  in  the  nature  of  a 
jest  came  very  hard  to  him.  He  would  look  bewildered  and  almost 
distressed  with  the  pleasantry  that  set  a  company  laughing.  I  remem- 
ber Park  Benjamin  said  of  him,  in  his  rather  extravagant  way,  that  if 
one  told  Charles  Sumner  the  moon  was  made  of  green  cheese  he  would 
controvert  the  alleged  fact,  in  all  sincerity,  and  give  good  reason  why 
it  could  not  be  so."     This  comment  may  help  to  explain  why  Dr. 


152      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Holmes  was  not  at  first  an  abolitionist,  and  why  as  the  contest  with 
slavery  went  on  he  separated  more  and  more  from  Sumner,  until  they 
came  together  again  in  the  years  of  civil  war  and  forcible  emancipa- 
tion. Holmes  was  a  man  of  wit,  and  in  his  youth  lacked  earnestness. 
He  saw  no  reason  to  sacrifice  his  professional  prospects  in  Boston,  or 
make  himself  unpopular,  by  joining  the  abolitionists.  He  was  at  that 
time  an  epicurean,  as  Mr.  Duyckinck  said  of  him,  by  way  of  compli- 
ment, in  1855.  He  believed  in  the  good  things  of  this  world,  and  had 
no  ambition  to  be  a  martyr.  It  is  to  be  feared,  also,  that  he  was  a 
natural  Tory — valuing  himself  on  the  good  company  he  kept,  and  the 
felicity  he  enjoyed  while  walking  what  he  calls 

"  The  sunny  street  that  holds  the  sifted  few," 

by  which  we  may  know  he  means  Beacon  Street  in  Boston  first,  and 
then  any  other  lautce  carince  in  other  regions.  Boston  then  abounded 
with  these  natural  Tories,  who,  in  the  rough  dialect  of  their  radical 
opposites,  were  styled  "  Hunkers."  They  made  up  the  powerful  class 
which  controlled  the  market,  the  college,  and  the  drawing-room ;  they 
opened  or  closed  at  will  the  avenues  of  preferment  for  young  men  of 
talent ;  they  ignored  Emerson,  loathed  Garrison,  detested  Parker,  ridi- 
culed Alcott  and  Margaret  Fuller,  tolerated  Sumner  and  Phillips  for  a 
time  on  account  of  their  talents,  and  then  quietly  sent  them  to  Coven- 
try. In  this  well-fed,  well-bred  minority,  supported  by  a  well-fed  but 
ill-bred  majority.  Dr.  Holmes  was  content  to  remain  for  years,  scoffing 
at  reformers  now  and  then  to  please  his  audience,  but  chafing  a  little 
under  the  dull  oppression  of  the  popular  theology,  against  which  he 
finally  revolted  as  completely  as  Theodore  Parker  had  done  before 
him.  In  his  "  Urania,"  written  in  1846,  Dr.  Holmes  went  so  far  as  to 
denounce  John  Quincy  Adams,  by  implication,  as  an  enemy  of  the 
Union,  while  that  "  old  man  eloquent "  was  fighting  the  battle  of  free- 
dom in  Congress.     The  poet  exclaimed  : 

"  Chiefs  of  New  England  !  by  your  sires'  renown 
Dash  the  red  torches  of  the  rebel  down  ! 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLME 8.  153 

Flood  his  black  hearthstone  till  its  flames  expire, 
Tliougli  your  old  Sachem  fanned  his  council  fire." 

This  "  old  Sachem "  was  Adams,  and  the  "  rebel "  was  the  abo- 
litionist, not  the  slaveholder,  who  turned  out  in  fact  to  be  so.  Patri- 
otism, always  strong  in  Dr.  Holmes,  united  with  toryism  to  hold  him 
on  the  "  Hunker  "  side  until  toward  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War, 
or,  perhaps,  no  later  than  1857,  when  the  anti-slavery  party  definitely 
gained  control  of  Massachusetts,  reelecting  Sumner  to  the  Senate 
almost  unanimously.  Indeed,  in  1856,  when  Sumner  was  assaulted  by 
the  South  Carolina  bully.  Dr.  Holmes  at  a  public  dinner  in  Boston 
denounced  the  outrage  as  an  assault  upon  the  Union.  And  when  the 
Civil  War  broke  out  none  stood  more  firmly  by  the  cause  of  the  North 
than  the  laughing  professor.  He  sent  his  oldest  son  to  the  fight,  and 
saw  him  twice  or  thrice  wounded,  without  shrinking  from  the  sacrifice 
which  his  country  demanded.  This  manly  attitude,  from  which  Dr. 
Holmes  never  receded,  atoned,  in  the  eyes  even  of  his  cousin  Phillips, 
for  the  early  antagonism  to  what  few  men  then  recognized  as  the 
sacred  cause  of  civilization. 

While  living  at  Pittsfield  in  summer  and  at  Boston  in  winter.  Dr. 
Holmes  became  for  a  few  years  one  of  the  most  popular  lyceum  lec- 
turers in  the  United  States,  and  spent  many  weeks  and  months  in  the 
fatiguing  work  of  lecturing  from  city  to  city,  from  town  to  town. 
Theodore  Parker,  who  had  more  experience  in  this  work,  for  ten 
years,  than  most  Americans,  wrote  to  a  friend  in  Germany  in  1857: 
"  This  business  of  lecturing  is  an  original  American  contrivance  for 
educating  the  people.  The  world  has  nothing  like  it.  In  it  are 
combined  the  best  things  of  the  Church — i.  e.,  the  preaching,  and  of 
the  College — i.  e.,  the  informing  thought,  with  some  of  the  fun  of 
the  Theatre.  Besides,  it  gives  the  rural  districts  a  chance  to  see  the 
men  they  read  about — to  see  the  lions — ^for  the  lecture  is  also  a  show 
to  the  eyes.  For  ten  years  past,  six  or  eight  of  the  most  powerful  and 
progressive  minds  in  America  have  been  lecturing  fifty  or  a  hundred 
times  in  the  year.     Surely  some  must  dance  after  so  much  piping,  and 

20 


154      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

that  of  so  moving  a  sort !  But  none  knows  tlie  hardsliips  of  tlie  lec- 
turer's life.  Some  weeks  since  I  went  to  Western  New  York,  traveled 
from  Monday  morning  till  Saturday  night,  expected  to  have  a 
reasonable  dinner  each  day,  to  sleep  quiet  in  my  bed  at  night,  and 
so  come  home  sounder  and  stronger  than  I  went  away.  I  had  two 
tolerable  dinners,  and  one  night  in  a  bed — four  nights  in  railroad 
cars.  Hereafter  I  will  limit  my  services  to  forty  lectures  in  a  winter." 
This  was  less  than  half  his  average  number  in  each  of  the  ten  years 
preceding  1858,  and  in  some  of  those  years  it  is  likely  that  Dr.  Holmes 
lectured  as  often  as  Parker.  He  did  not  take  the  same  high  view 
of  the  lecturer's  opportunity  in  America  that  Parker  did  when  he 
"  appointed  himself  a  Home  Missionary  for  Lectures,",  as  he  once  said. 
On  the  contrary.  Dr.  Holmes  at  first  viewed  lecturing  too  much  in  its 
personal  relation  to  himself,  as  poets  and  Bostonians  are  apt  to  look  at 
all  things.  It  increased  his  income,  then  not  so  large  as  he  needed, 
but  he  was  a  little  humiliated  at  the  thought  of  going  here  and  there 
on  exhibition,  like  Shakespeare,  the  actor,  who  complained  of  Fortune 
when  that  guilty  goddess 

*'  Did  not  better  for  my  life  provide 
Than  public  means  which  public  manners  breeds." 

"  I  have  played  the  part  of  the  *  Poor  Gentleman '  before  a  great 
many  audiences,"  says  the  Autocrat ;  "  more,  I  trust,  than  I  shall  ever 
face  again.  I  did  not  wear  a  stage  costume,  nor  a  wig,  nor  mustaches 
of  burnt  cork ;  but  I  was  placarded  and  announced  as  a  public  per- 
former, and  at  the  proper  hour  I  came  forward  with  the  ballet-dancer's 
smile  upon  my  countenance,  and  made  my  bow  and  acted  my  part.  I 
have  seen  my  name  stuck  up  in  letters  so  big  that  I  was  ashamed  to 
show  myself  in  the  place  by  daylight.  I  have  gone  to  a  town  with  a 
sober  literary  essay  in  my  pocket,  and  seen  myself  everywhere  an- 
nounced as  the  most  desperate  of  htiffos.  I  have  been  through  as 
many  hardships  as  Ulysses  in  the  exercise  of  my  histrionic  vocation. 
I  have  sometimes  felt  as  if  I  were  a  wandering  spirit,  and  this  great, 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  155 

unchanging  multivertebrate  whidi  I  faced  night  after  night  was  one 
ever-listening  animal,  which  writhed  along  after  me  wherever  I  fled, 
and  coiled  at  my  feet  every  evening,  turning  up  to  me  the  same  sleep- 
less eyes  which  I  thought  I  had  closed  with  my  last  drowsy  incan- 
tation." 

There  is  nothing,  in  this  fastidious  recollection,  of  that  high  spirit 
which  led  Parker  to  say :  "  I  knew  the  power  of  a  great  idea,  and,  spite 
of  the  Market,  the  State,  the  Church,  and  the  Press,  I  thought  a  few 
earnest  men  in  the  lecture  halls  of  the  North  might  yet  incline  the 
People's  mind  and  heart  to  Justice  and  the  Eternal  Law  of  God,  and 
so  make  the  American  experiment  a  triumph  and  a  joy  for  all  human 
kind."  At  that  time  Holmes  could  hardly  be  termed  an  "  earnest 
man,"  and  his  view  of  the  lecturer's  mission,  aside  from  the  lucrative 
part  of  it,  was  better  expressed  by  Mr.  Duyckinck,  in  1855,  when  he 
spoke  of  Holmes  as  "latterly  amusing  himself  ^iih.  the  profitable  va- 
riety of  visiting  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  Northern  and  Middle  States 
in  the  delivery  of  lectures,  of  which  he  has  a  good  working  stock  on 
hand.  Thus  he  carries  pleasure  and  refiiiement  from  the  charmed 
salons  of  Beacon  Street  to  towns  and  villages  in  the  back  districts, 
suddenly  opened  to  light  and  civilization  by  the  straight  cut  of  the 
railroad."  To  be  a  missionary  of  Boston  culture,  rather  than  the  apos- 
tle of  political  or  theological  revolution,  must  have  pleased  the  anxious 
thought  of  this  medical  Brahmin.  For  Boston  was  then,  and  has  ever 
since  been  to  him,  the  chief  city  of  the  world.  *'  That's  all  I  claim  for 
Boston,"  he  makes  one  of  his  characters  say,  "  that  it  is  the  thinking 
center  of  the  continent,  and,  therefore,  of  the  planet.  Show  me  any 
other  place  that  is,  or  was,  since  the  megalosaurus  has  died  out,  where 
wealth  and  social  influence  are  so  fairly  divided  between  the  station- 
ary and  the  progressive  classes ! "  And  in  another  vein  the  author 
says,  later :  "  I  never  thought  he  would  come  to  good  when  I  heard 
him  attempting  to  sneer  at  an  unoffending  city  so  respectable  as  Bos- 
ton. Poor  Edgar  Poe  died  in  the  hospital  soon  after  he  got  into  this 
way  of  talking.  Remember  poor  Edgar !  He  is  dead  and  gone ;  but 
the  State  House  has  its  cupola  fresh  gilded,  and  the  Frog  Pond  has 


156      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

got  a  fountain  that  squirts  up  a  hundred  feet  into  the  air,  and  glori- 
fies that  humble  street  with  a  fine  display  of  provincial  rainbows." 

Yet,  in  a  certain  sense,  Dr.  Holmes,  who  had  idolized  Boston  and 
been  idolized  in  turn,  was  the  immediate  successor  of  Theodore  Parker, 
who  denounced  Boston — took  Boston  by  the  collar,  as  it  were,  marched 
it  up  to  the  mirror  of  history,  and  made  it  see  its  own  painted  face  in 
that  impartial  glass.  When  Parker  broke  down  in  1859,  and  left  his 
pulpit  and  his  lecture  platform  to  wander  in  search  of  health  and  to 
die  in  Florence  in  1860,  Holmes  had  already  began,  in  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly,"  those  trenchant  assaults  on  the  old  theology  of  New  Eng- 
land which  Parker  was  unable  to  continue.  And  Holmes  did  not 
fairly  fasten  upon  himself  the  attention  of  the  whole  country  until  he 
appeared  in  this  new  character  of  a  reformer.  As  a  lecturer  he  had 
his  day  and  passed  by,  his  audience  no  longer  craving  the  nuts  and 
raisins  of  his  wit,  and  the  light  meringues  of  his  literary  criticism. 
When  the  friends  of  good  literature  in  Massachusetts,  with  Lowell  for 
their  cockswain,  launched  their  new  magazine,  the  "Atlantic,"  in  1857, 
Dr.  Holmes  was  called  on,  and  consented  to  take  an  active  oar  in  the 
galley.  Well  did  he  perform  his  part,  and  without  him  the  voyage 
might  have  come  to  an  early  end,  in  spite  of  Lowell's  learning  and 
wit,  Emerson's  poetic  and  philosophic  insight,  Longfellow's  popular 
gift,  and  Whittier's  moral  muse.  To  the  first  seven  volumes  Holmes 
contributed  fifty -four  papers  or  poems,  and  to  the  first  twenty  volumes 
nearly  a  hundred;  while  Mr.  Lowell  himself  contributed  but  sixty- 
eight  pieces,  mostly  short  literary  notices,  to  the  first  seven  volumes, 
and  not  more  than  a  hundred  to  the  first  twenty  volumes.  This  period 
covers  that  of  Lowell's  greatest  literary  productiveness,  when  he  was 
writing  the  second  series  of  "  Biglow  Papers " ;  and,  while  Lowell, 
since  the  twentieth  volume,  has  contributed  scarcely  more  than  thirty 
pieces.  Holmes  has  sent  in  about  fifty.  To  the  first  twenty  volumes 
Emerson  contributed  but  twenty-six  pieces,  Longfellow  thirty-one, 
Whittier  forty-three,  Whipple  forty -three,  and  Higginson  sixty-three. 
Mr.  Ho  wells,  the  late  editor  of  the  "  Atlantic,"  who  has  written  more 
articles  for  it  than  any  one  else,  contributed  to  the  first  twenty  vol- 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES, 


157 


BANKS    OF    THE    HOUSATONIC,    AT    PITTSFIELD. 


158      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

umes  only  forty-one  papers  and  poems,  chiefly  short  pieces,  and  Pro- 
fessor Norton  less  than  forty  pieces.  It  thus  appears  that,  up  to  1868, 
Dr.  Holmes  was  the  principal  contributor  to  the  "  Atlantic,"  and  it  is 
also  true  that  his  contributions  were  more  widely  read  than  those  of 
any  other  writer. 

He  became,  in  fact,  a  magazine  lecturer,  with  a  more  serious  pur- 
pose, and  with  a  far  larger  audience,  than  he  had  ever  commanded  from 
the  platform  in  Boston  or  elsewhere.  Some  of  his  "Atlantic"  lec- 
tures took  the  form  of  "medicated  novels"  (as  he  reports  that  a  witty 
Boston  woman  called  them)  ;  others  were  essays  or  poems  on  scientific, 
literary,  or  personal  themes,  but  mostly  they  were  given  in  that  dis- 
connected manner  of  a  talker  at  the  table,  which  the  title  of  his  first 
successful  series  indicates.  This  title,  "  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 
Table,"  was  one  he  had  used  in  1832,  when  contributing  two  papers 
to  the  "New  England  Magazine,"  of  Boston,  then  edited  by  Joseph 
T.  Buckingham,  who  afterward,  as  editor  of  the  "  Boston  Courier,"  re- 
ceived and  published  Lowell's  first  series  of  "  Biglow  Papers."  But 
the  papers  of  1832  were  mere  trifles,  while  the  "Atlantic"  essays, 
under  the  same  name,  were,  from  the  first,  worthy  of  note,  though  by 
no  means  so  serious  as  they  afterward  became.  From  the  first,  how- 
ever, they  gave  the  author's  autobiography,  not  without  much  repeti- 
tion before  the  series  was  completed.  In  the  first  "Atlantic"  "Auto- 
crat" (November,  1857)  we  find  this  bit  of  Lucilian  brag  about  the 
family  images  and  traditions :  "  I  go  for  the  man  with  the  family  por- 
traits, against  the  one  with  the  twenty-five-cent  daguerreotype,  unless 
I  find  out  that  the  last  is  the  better  of  the  two.  I  go  for  the  man 
that  inherits  family  traditions  and  the  cumulative  humanities  of,  at 
least,  four  or  five  generations.  Above  all  things,  as  a  child,  he  should 
have  tumbled  about  in  a  library.  All  men  are  afraid  of  books  that 
have  not  handled  them  from  infancy.  Do  you  suppose  our  dear  Pro- 
fessor over  there  "  (himself)  "  ever  read  '  Poli  Synopsis,'  or  consulted 
*  Castelli  Lexicon,'  while  he  was  growing  up  to  their  stature  ?  Not 
he ;  but  virtue  passed  through  the  hem  of  their  parchment  and  leather 
garments  whenever  he  touched  them.    I  tell  you  he  is  at  home  where- 


OLIVER   WENDELL  HOLMES.  159 

ever  lie  smells  tlie  invigorating  fragrance  of  Russia  leather.  No  self- 
made  man  feels  soy  This  note  of  vainglory  is  heard  at  intervals 
through  all  the  oracular  utterances  of  the  Autocrat,  the  Professor,  and 
the  Poet,  and  it  has  sometimes  proved  provoking,  though  as  harmless 
as  the  egotism  of  Sumner,  or  the  dyspeptic  carping  of  Carlyle.  What- 
ever Dr.  Holmes  has  done  is  sure  to  have  been  well  done,  and  he 
dwells  upon  his  personal  history  microscopically,  where  Thoreau  and 
Whitman  would  have  done  it  telescopically.  It  was  made  a  reproach 
against  Thoreau  by  an  elderly  neighbor  from  Connecticut  (where  also 
Nature  existed)  that  "  Henry  talked  about  Nature  just  as  if  she  was 
bom  and  brought  up  in  Concord  " ;  and  so  Holmes  is  always  bringing 
things  down  to  the  horizon  of  his  own  experiences.  Thus,  after  leav- 
ing his  Montgomery  Place  abode,  and  taking  another  on  the  west  side 
of  old  Boston,  beside  the  river  Charles,  he  dilates  on  his  boating  ad- 
ventures, which  he  seems  to  have  begun  on  the  Housatonic  before 
1850,  and  which  are  first  commemorated  in  his  verses  to  "  Governor 
Swain,"  one  of  the  owners,  after  1843,  of  the  fair  island  of  Naushon, 
in  Gosnold's  Bay,  near  New  Bedford,  where  Dr.  Holmes  was  some- 
times a  visitor,  as  of  late  years  Mr.  Emerson  has  often  been.  Writing 
to  Mr.  Swain,  in  1851,  Holmes  says,  if  his  skiff  could  venture  out  to 
sea,  he  would  float  down  the  Housatonic  from  Pittsfield  to  Long 
Island  Sound,  and  thence  eastward  to  Naushon. 

*'  The  mountain  stream  that  loops  and  swerves 
Through  my  broad  meadow's  channeled  curves 
Should  waft  me  on,  from  bound  to  bound, 
To  where  the  River  weds  the  Sound  ; 
The  Sound  should  give  me  to  the  Sea, 
That  to  the  Bay,  the  Bay  to  thee." 

Such  a  voyage  he  never  attempted,  but  in  1858  he  thus  describes 
his  exploits  in  one  of  his  three  boats  on  the  Charles : 

"  In  my  own  particular  water-sulky,  a  '  shell '  race-boat,  twenty-two 
feet  long,  with  huge  outriggers,  which  boat  I  pull  with  ten-foot  sculls 
— alone,  of  course,  as  it  holds  but  one,  and  tips  him  out  if  he  doesn't 


160      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS 

mind  what  lie  is  about — I  glide  around  the  Back  Bay,  down  the  stream, 
up  the  Charles  to  Cambridge  and  Watertown,  up  the  Mystic,  round 
the  wharves,  in  the  wake  of  steamboats,  which  have  a  swell  after  them, 
delightful  to  rock  upon.  I  linger  under  the  '  caterpillar  bridges ' ;  nib 
against  the  black  sides  of  old  wood  schooners ;  cool  down  under  the 
overhanging  stem  of  some  tall  Indiaman ;  stretch  across  to  the  Navy- 
yard,  then  strike  out  into  the  harbor,  where  the  water  gets  clear,  and 
the  air  smells  of  ocean ;  till  all  at  once  I  remember  that,  if  a  west 
wind  blows  up  of  a  sudden,  I  shall  drift  along  past  the  islands,  out  of 
sight  of  the  dear  old  State  House.  As  I  don't  want  my  wreck  to  be 
washed  up  on  one  of  the  beaches,  I  turn  about  and  flap  my  long,  nar- 
row wings  for  home.  Then  back  to  my  moorings  at  the  foot  of  the 
Common,  off  with  the  rowing  dress,  dash  under  the  green  translucent 
wave,  return  to  the  garb  of  civilization,  walk  through  my  (Public) 
Garden,  take  a  look  at  my  elms  on  the  Common,  and,  reaching  my 
habitat,  in  consideration  of  my  advanced  period  of  life,  indulge  in  the 
elysian  abandonment  of  a  huge  recumbent  chair." 

This  is  an  interesting  account  of  the  amusements  of  an  active  pro- 
fessional and  literary  man  at  the  age  of  forty-nine,  but  it  concentrates 
the  reader's  attention  upon  the  author  rather  too  much,  and  not,  as 
do  Hawthorne's  and  Thoreau's  personal  sketches,  upon  the  scenery  and 
events  described.  As  compared  with  Walt  Whitman's  personalities, 
too,  these  seem  rather  petty,  though  more  refined  and  well-mannered. 
It  is  the  Boston  habit  to  fix  attention  closely  on  matters  in  themselves 
small  and  personal,  even  when  larger  spiritual  considerations  are  di- 
rectly involved ;  and  Dr.  Holmes  furnishes  an  example  of  this  as  good 
as  one  could  easily  find. 

Thus,  along  with  these  trifles  of  daily  life,  the  Professor  and  the 
Poet,  at  their  remarkable  boarding-house  table,  take  up  the  most  solemn 
interests  of  the  soul,  and  undertake  to  present  a  nobler  view  of  man 
and  his  Maker  than  that  which  they  found  prevailing.  In  doing  this. 
Dr.  Holmes  first  began  his  long  tilt  against  Jonathan  Edwards  and  the 
doctrine  of  Total  Depravity,  insisting,  however,  that  he  found  his  own 
faith  in  one  of  the  old  Cambridge  Puritan  preachers.     To  prove  this. 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES.  161 

he  quotes  the  quaint  words  of  Jonathan  Singletary,  one  of  the  wit- 
nesses in  the  Salem  witchcraft  delusion,  who,  when  he  had  described 
what,  no  doubt,  seemed  to  him  supernatural  noises,  added :  "  I  was  at 
present  something  affrighted ;  yet,  considering  what  I  had  lately  heard 
•  made  out  by  Mr.  Mitchel  at  Cambridge — that  there  is  more  good  in 
God  than  there  is  evil  in  sin,  and  that,  although  God  is  the  greatest 
good,  and  sin  the  greatest  evil,  yet  the  first  Being  of  evil  can  not 
weane  the  scales,  or  ovei-power  the  first  Being  of  good ;  so,  considering 
that"  the  author  of  good  was  of  gi-eater  power  than  the  author  of  evil, 
God  was  pleased,  of  his  goodness,  to  keep  me  from  being  out  of  meas- 
ure frighted."  And  then  Dr.  Holmes  says :  "  I  shall  always  bless  the 
memory  of  this  poor  timid  creature  for  saving  that  dear  remembrance 
of  '  Matchless  Mitchel.'  I  can  see  the  little  bare  meeting-house,  with 
the  godly  deacons,  and  the  grave  matrons,  and  the  comely  maidens, 
and  the  sober  manhood  of  the  village  "  (as  Holmes  had,  indeed,  seen 
them  in  his  boyhood),  "  with  the  small  group  of  college  students  sit- 
ting by  themselves  under  the  shadow  of  the  awful  Presidential  Pres- 
ence, all  listening  to  that  preaching  which  was,  as  Cotton  Mather  says, 
'  as  a  very  lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice ' ;  and  as  the 
holy  pastor  utters  those  blessed  words,  which  are  not  of  any  church 
or  age,  but  of  all  time,  the  humble  place  of  worship  is  filled  with  their 
perfume,  as  the  house  where  Maiy  knelt  was  filled  with  the  odor  of 
the  precious  ointment."  This  passage  well  represents  the  best  side 
of  Dr.  Holmes's  divinity ;  but  at  times  he  has  been  more  controversial 
and  irritating  to  the  old-fashioned  orthodox,  who  have  not  failed  to 
attack  him  in  their  turn.  In  course  of  time  this  has  brought  him  so 
far  from  his  old  consei"vative  ground  that,  when  he  read,  not  long  since, 
his  paper  on  Jonathan  Edwards,  lately  printed  in  the  "  North  Ameri- 
can Eeview,"  it  was  in  presence  of  the  Boston  "radicals,"  who  gather 
in  Mrs.  Sargent's  drawing-room  in  Chestnut  Street. 

Of  late  years  Dr.  Holmes  has  removed  from  his  Charles  Street 
house,  where  Governor  Andrew  and  James  T.  Fields  were  his  neigh- 
bors, to  a  house  on  that  western  extension  of  Beacon  Street  known  as 
"The  Mill-dam."     There  he  lives,  surrounded  with  his  books,  still 

21 


162      THE  HOME 8  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

writing  poems  and  essays,  and  sparkling  letters ;  and  from  there  in  tlie 
winter  season  lie  still  goes  forth  to  lecture  before  tlie  medical  students 
of  Harvard  University,  four  or  five  times  a  week,  as  lie  has  done  for 
more  than  thirty  years.  His  medical  lectures  and  occasional  profes- 
sional writings  would  alone  have  given  him  a  literary  reputation,  so 
clear  and  learned,  so  witty  and  suggestive,  have  they  been.  He  has 
passed  the  age  of  threescore  and  ten,  and,  in  his  last  volume  of  poems, 
celebrates  himself  as  an  old  man ;  but,  like  Anacreon,  he  yet  has  much 
of  the  fire  of  youth  in  him,  and  will  continue  to  write,  as  we  hope,  for 
many  years  to  come.  He  is  of  small  stature,  like  his  father,  the  Cam- 
bridge parson,  and,  like  him,  quick  and  electrical  in  his  movements  and 
gesture.  Though  now  wearing  white  hair,  and  using  glasses,  he  still 
recalls  the  picture  made  of  him  by  one  who  heard  him  in  1836  read 
his  first  long  poem  in  the  college  church  at  Cambridge.  "  Extremely 
youthful  in  his  appearance,  bubbling  over  with  the  mingled  humor 
and  pathos  that  have  always  marked  his  poetry,  and  sparkling  with 
the  coruscations  of  his  peculiar  genius,  he  delivered  the  poem  with  a 
clear,  ringing  enunciation,  which  imparted  to  the  hearers  his  own  en- 
joyment of  his  thoughts  and  expressions."  It  is  in  this  manner  that 
he  has  been  delighting  two  generations  of  his  friends,  without  losing 
his  own  pleasure  while  conferring  so  much  on  others.  By  the  calendar 
he  must  be  reckoned  old,  but  hardly  otherwise,  since  to  him  his  grace- 
ful couplet  well  applies : 

"  For  him  in  vain  the  envious  seasons  roll 
Who  bears  eternal  summer  in  his  soul." 


J 


•  /    hi       / '' 


y^idU^       >^^Ji/     A.^i^£     A/4^^     >iu*2^U    ^i^t^^^ 


^/^^^^      /t^  jfi^i^    ^    /^    ^  ^>^ 


'ELMWOOD,"    residence    of    JAMES   RUSSELL    LOWELL. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


In  1843  Hawthorne,  tlien  an  almost  unknown  author,*  though  he 
had  published  the  "  Twice-Told  Tales,"  wrote  for  his  young  friend 
Lowell  a  new  piece — "  The  Hall  of  Fantasy  " — ^in  the  second  number 
of  "  The  Pioneer,"  a  three  months'  magazine,  edited  in  Boston  by 


164      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

James  Russell  Lowell  and  Robert  Carter.  In  this  sketcli  Hawthorne 
describes  himself  as  visiting  "  a  spacious  hall  with  a  pavement  of  white 
marble,  and  a  lofty  dome,  supported  by  long  rows  of  pillars  of  fantas- 
tic architecture,"  in  which  he  meets  poets  and  romancers,  men  of 
imagination  and  of  wit,  his  own  contemporaries,  as  they  then  appeared 
to  him — ^Bryant,  Percival,  Dana,  Halleck,  Willis,  Charles  Sprague, 
Pierpont,  Longfellow,  Irving,  Cooper,  Miss  Sedgwick,  Dr.  Holmes,  and 
others.  "  In  the  midst  of  these  lights  of  the  age,"  said  Hawthorne, 
"  it  gladdened  me  to  greet  my  old  friends  of  Brook  Farm,  with  whom, 
though  a  recreant  now,  I  had  borne  the  heat  of  many  a  summer's  day, 
while  we  labored  together  toward  the  perfect  life.  Mr.  Emerson  was 
likewise  there,  leaning  against  one  of  the  pillars,  and  surrounded  by  an 
admiring  crowd  of  writers  and  readers  of  "  The  Dial,"  and  all  manner 
of  Transcendentalists  and  disciples  of  the  Newness,  most  of  whom  be- 
trayed the  power  of  his  intellect  by  its  modifying  influence  upon  their 
own.  He  had  come  into  the  hall,  I  suppose,  in  search  either  of  a  fact 
or  a  real  man.  In  the  same  part  of  the  hall  Jones  Very  stood  alone, 
within  a  circle  which  no  other  of  mortal  race  could  enter,  nor  himself 
escape  from.  Here  also  was  Mr.  Alcott ;  and  there  was  no  man  in  the 
enchanted  hall  whose  mere  presence,  the  language  of  whose  look  and 
manner,  wrought  such  an  impression  as  that  of  this  great  mystic  inno- 
vator. So  calm  and  gentle  was  he,  so  holy  in  aspect,  so  quiet  in  the 
utterance  of  what  his  soul  brooded  upon,  that  one  might  readily  con- 
ceive his  Orphic  Sayings  to  well  upward  from  a  fountain  in  his  breast 
which  communicated  with  the  infinite  abyss  of  Thought.  There  was 
Washington  Allston,  who  possesses  the  freedom  of  the  hall  by  the 
threefold  claim  of  painter,  novelist,  and  poet ;  and  John  Neal,  whose 
rampant  muse  belches  wild  fire,  with  huge  volumes  of  smoke ;  and 
Lowell,  tTie  poet  of  the  generation  that  noiv  enters  upon  the  staged 

This  passage  (omitted  by  the  author  in  his  "  Mosses,"  and  which 
Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne  has,  perhaps,  forgotten  in  his  father's  waitings, 
as  most  readers  have)  gives  at  a  glimpse  the  company  in  which  the 
young  Lowell  found  himself  when  he  began  to  make  a  name  among 
his  countrymen  in  literature  and  in  thought.     He  was  associated  with 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  165 

the  idealists,  tlie  romantic  and  mystical  and  liberty-loving  writers  and 
speakers,  who  kept  alive  the  light  of  freedom  and  culture  at  a  period 
of  our  national  history  when  both  seemed  in  danger  of  extinction.  At 
that  time  he  was  not  only  intimate  with  Emerson  and  Alcott,  but  with 
the  despised  and  hated  abolitionists,  headed  by  Garrison  and  Phillips. 
In  the  same  number  of  "  The  Pioneer,"  and,  apparently,  from  Lowell's 
own  pen,  we  find  a  tribute  to  his  anti-slavery  associates  and  leaders : 
"  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  haK-inspired  Luther  of  this  reform,  a 
man  too  remarkable  to  be  appreciated  in  his  generation,  but  whom 
the  future  will  recognize  as  a  great  and  wonderful  spirit ;  Whittier, 
the  fiery  Koemer  of  this  spiritual  warfare  ;  and  the  tenderly-loving 
Maria  Child,  the  author  of  that  dear  book  '  Philothea  ' — a  woman  of 
genius  who  lives  with  humble  content  in  the  intellectual  Coventry  to 
which  her  conscientiousness  has  banished  her — a  fate  the  hardest  for 
genius  to  bear." 

During  his  apprenticeship  to  literature  Lowell  found  himseK  also 
in  this  "  intellectual  Coventry,"  but  it  was  no  banishment  to  him,  for 
in  it  he  found  the  sweetest  companionship  and  the  noblest  inspiration. 
It  was  among  the  gifted,  brilliant,  and  lovely  young  abolitionists  of 
Boston  and  its  suburbs  that  his  own  genius  was  called  forth ;  his  Cov- 
entry had  its  Lady  Godiva,  also,  to  love  whom,  as  Steele  said  of  Lady 
Elizabeth  Hastings,  "  was  a  liberal  education."  A  noble  cause  and  an 
absorbing  love  engaged  Lowell  at  the  same  time,  and  it  was  through 
his  devotion  to  Maria  White,  quite  as  much  as  from  ancestral  inherit- 
ance or  early  education,  that  he  ranked  himself,  at  opening  manhood, 
among  the  New  England  reformers.  His  grandfather.  Judge  Lowell, 
had  inserted  in  the  Massachusetts  "  Bill  of  Eights,"  in  1780,  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  clause  that  "  all  men  are  bom  free  and  equal,"  for  the  purpose, 
as  he  then  avowed,  of  abolishing  slavery  in  Massachusetts ;  and  he 
offered  his  services  as  a  lawyer,  through  the  newspapers,  after  the 
State  Constitution  was  adopted,  to  any  slave  who  desired  under  that 
clause  to  claim  his  liberty.  The  poet's  father,  Dr.  Charles  Lowell, 
who  was  born  in  Boston,  in  1782,  was  but  a  year  old  when  the  Massa- 
chusetts Supreme  Court  decided  Judge  Lowell's  position  in  favor  of 


166      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

freedom  to  be  constitutional,  and,  since  1783,  slavery  has  had  no  legal 
existence  in  Massachusetts,  thanks  to  the  name  of  Lowell.  Francis 
Cabot  Lowell,  an  uncle  of  the  poet,  who  died  in  1817,  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  cotton  manufacture  in  Massachusetts ;  and  it  is  from 
him  that  the  city  of  Lowell  takes  its  name.  John  Lowell,  first  cousin 
of  the  poet,  but  born  twenty  years  before  him,  was  the  founder  of  the 
Lowell  Institute,  in  Boston — an  endowment  by  which  free  courses  of 
lectures  on  religion,  science,  literature,  and  art  have  been  maintained 
in  that  city  for  more  than  forty  years. 

Connected  with  such  a  family,  James  Russell  Lowell  began  life, 
not  only  with  tendencies  in  the  right  direction,  but  with  advantages 
that  materially  aided  him  in  the  pursuits  of  his  after-life.  His  father, 
Rev.  Charles  Lowell,  was  a  minister  in  Boston  from  1806  till  1861, 
when  he  died,  but  during  the  greater  portion  of  his  long  pastorate  his 
home  was  at  Cambridge,  in  the  old  Tory  mansion-house  now  called 
"Elmwood,"  where  his  son  the  poet  was  bom,  February  22,  1819. 
This  house,  with  its  grounds,  has  been  described  by  Lowell,  as  so 
many  of  his  Cambridge  haunts  have  been ;  it  is  still  his  home,  when 
he  is  not  residing  abroad,  as  at  present ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  few  Ameri- 
can houses  in  which  a  distinguished  man  has  been  born  and  spent  his 
whole  life.  Mr.  Longfellow,  his  neighbor,  lives  in  another  of  the  old 
Cambridge  Tory  houses — but  he  was  not  born  there.  Dr.  Lowell  had 
occupied  Elmwood  but  a  year  or  two  when  his  youngest  son,  James 
Russell  Lowell,  was  bom.  Its  last  owner  had  been  Elbridge  Gerry,  a 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  and 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  but  the  house  was  built 
before  the  Revolution,  for  a  very  different  sort  of  magnate — Thomas 
Oliver,  the  Tory  lieutenant-governor  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  driven 
out  of  it  by  a  patriotic  mob  in  September,  1774,  since  when  there 
have  been  no  royal  lieutenant-governors  in  Massachusetts.  It  is  a 
three-story,  square,  wooden  house,  plainly  built,  but  with  spacious 
grounds,  on  which  are  stately  pines  and  the  elms  that  gave  it  a  name, 
and  the  bam  and  outbuildings  which  the  Tory  magnate  used  more  than 
a  century  ago.     The  grounds  in  front  are  laid  out  in  some  semblance 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  167 

of  a  garden,  but  in  the  rear  they  are  tangled  and  wild,  and  not  far  off 
is  the  rural  cemetery  of  Boston — Mount  Auburn — in  which  the  poet's 
children  and  kinsmen  are  buried. 

**  I  thought  of  a  mound  in  sweet  Auburn, 
Where  a  little  headstone  stood ; 
How  the  flakes  were  folding  it  gently. 

As  did  robins  the  babes  in  the  wood." 

The  poet's  study  was  formerly  a  west  chamber  in  the  third  story, 
from  whose  southern  windows  a  wide  view  includes  Boston  and  its 
suburbs,  with  the  river  Charles  in  the  foreground,  creeping  among 
its  broad  meadows ;  while  below  are  the  trees  and  the  birds  which 
Lowell  celebrates  in  his  poem,  "  Under  the  Willows  " — 

*'  The  sliding  Charles, 
Blue  toward  the  west,  and  bluer  and  more  blue, 
Living  and  lustrous  as  a  woman's  eyes 
Look  once  and  look  no  more  ;  with  southward  curve 
Ran  crinkling  sunniness,  like  Helen's  hair 
Glimpsed  in  Elysium,  in  substantial  gold. 
From  blossom-clouded  orchards,  far  away. 
The  bobolink  tinkled  ;  the  deep  meadows  flowed 
"With  multitudinous  pulse  of  light  and  shade 
Against  the  bases  of  the  southern  hills  ; 
While  here  and  there  a  drowsy  island  rick 
Slept,  and  its  shadow  slept ;  the  wooden  bridge 
Thundered,  and  then  was  silent ;  on  the  roof 
The  sun-warped  shingles  rippled  with  the  heat." 

Amid  scenery  like  this,  described  also  in  the  glowing  and  liquid 
rhymes  of  "  Sir  Launfal,"  Russell  Lowell  grew  up,  through  childhood 
and  youth,  in  an  old  house  full  of  old  pictures  and  furniture,  old  and 
new  books,  and  in  a  town  where  the  old  and  new  were  strangely  blent 
together.  The  familiar  name  of  this  town  is  "  Old  Cambi'idge,"  osten- 
sibly to  distinguish  the  village  where  the  colleges  stood  from  Cam- 
bridgeport,  East  Cambridge,  North  and  "West  Cambridge — all  which 


J 


168      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

were  formerly  parts  of  the  ancient  Massachusetts  town  of  Cambridge 
— ^but  really  to  mark  by  a  single  word  the  traditional  air  and  manner 
of  the  place.  In  his  "  Indian  Summer  Reverie,"  and  again  in  the  prose 
of  "  Fireside  Travels,"  Lowell  has  drawn  the  picture  of  the  quiet,  half 
rural  town,  now  transformed  into  a  city  of  fifty  thousand  inhabitants, 


THE    CHARLES    RIVER. 


where  the  poet  had  his  birth,  breeding,  college  life,  wooing,  and  domes- 
tic happiness ;  where  he  won  his  fame,  too,  and  wrote  all  those  books 
by  which  posterity  will  remember  him. 


"  There  gleams  my  native  village,  dear  to  me, 

Though  higher  change's  waves  each  day  are  seen, 
Whelming  fields  famed  in  boyhood's  history. 
Sanding  with  houses  the  diminished  green; 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  169 

There,  in  red  brick,  which  softening  time  defies, 
Stand  square  and  stiff  the  Muse's  factories  ; 

How  with  my  life  knit  up  is  every  well-known  scene  I 

*'  Flow  on,  dear  river  !  not  alone  you  flow 

To  outward  sight  and  through  your  marshes  wind  ; 

Fed  from  the  mystic  springs  of  long  ago. 

Your  twin  flows  silent  through  my  world  of  mind  ; 

Grow  dim,  dear  marshes,  in  the  evening's  gray  ! 

Before  my  inner  sight  ye  stretch  away. 

And  will  for  ever,  though  these  fleshly  eyes  grow  blind. 

**  Beyond  the  hillock's  house-bespotted  swell. 

Where  Gothic  chapels  house  the  horse  and  chaise, 
Where  quiet  cits  in  Grecian  temples  dwell. 

Where  Coptic  tombs  resound  with  prayer  and  praise, 
Where  dust  and  mud  the  equal  year  divide, 
There  gentle  Allston  lived,  and  wrought,  and  died." 

These  gibes  at  the  wooden  architecture  scattered  over  Dana  Hill, 
on  the  way  from  Mount  Auburn  to  the  Port,  will  be  understood  by 
all  who  remember  Cambridge  as  it  was  before  the  Civil  War,  and  still 
better  by  those  whose  memory  reaches  back  to  the  days  of  Sales, 
Popkin,  Waterhouse,  and  Dr.  Kirkland,  the  college  dignitaries  por- 
trayed by  Lowell  in  those  incomplete  chapters  addressed  to  Story,  the 
artist,  which  he  calls  "Fireside  Travels."  The  poet's  classmate  and 
intimate  friend,  William  Story  (son  of  the  great  judge  of  that  name, 
who  lived  and  died  in  Cambridge),  is  there  addressed  as  "  Edelmann 
Storg,"  recalling  the  blunder  of  some  German  who  had  seen  the  name 
written,  and  had  stumbled  over  both  the  title  and  the  surname.  In 
these  chapters,  Lowell  says,  speaking  of  Cambridge  at  his  earliest  rec- 
ollection : 

"Boston  was  not  yet  a  city"  (it  became  one  in  1823,  when  Lowell 
was  four  years  old),  "  and  Cambridge  was  still  a  country  village  "  (of 
3,300  inhabitants  in  1820),  "with  its  own  habits  and  traditions,  not 
yet  feeling  too  strongly  the  force  of  suburban  gravitation.     Approach- 

22 


J 


170      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

ing  it  from  tlie  west,  by  what  was  then  called  the  New  Road " 
(perhaps  the  Concord  Turnpike),  "  you  would  pause  on  the  brow  of 
Symond's  Hill  to  enjoy  a  view  singularly  soothing  and  placid.  In 
front  of  you  lay  the  town,  tufted  with  elms,  lindens,  and  horse-chest- 
nuts, which  had  seen  Massachusetts  a  colony,  and  were  fortunately 
unable  to  emigrate  with  the  Tories,  by  whom,  or  by  whose  fathers, 
they  were  planted.  Over  it  rose  the  noisy  belfry  of  the  College,  the 
square  brown  tower  of  the  (Episcopal)  Church,  and  the  slim  yellow 


SALT  MEADOWS  ON  THE  CHARLES. 


spire  of  the  parish  meeting-house.  On  your  right  the  Charles  slipped 
smoothly  through  green  and  purple  salt  meadows,  darkened  here  and 
there  with  the  blossoming  black-grass  as  with  a  stranded  cloud-shadow. 
To  your  left  hand,  upon  the  Old  Road  "  (now  Mount  Auburn  Street), 
"  you  saw  some  half-dozen  dignified  old  houses  of  the  colonial  time,  all 
comfortably  fronting  southward.  .  .  .  We  called  it  '  the  Village '  then, 
and  it  was  essentially  an  English  village — quiet,  unspeculative,  without 
enterprise,  sufficing  to  itself,  and  only  showing  such  differences  from 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  in 

the  original  type  as  the  public  school  and  the  system  of  town  govern- 
ment might  superinduce.  A  few  houses,  chiefly  old,  stood  around 
the  bare  Common,  with  ample  elbow-room,  and  old  women,  capped 
and  spectacled,  stiU  peered  through  the  same  windows  from  which 
they  had  watched  Lord  Percy's  artillery  rumble  by  to  Lexington,  or 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  handsome  Virginia  general  who  had  come  to 
wield  our  homespun  Saxon  chivalry.  The  hooks  were  to  be  seen  from 
which  had  swung  the  hammocks  of  Burgoyne's  captive  red-coats.  If 
memory  does  not  deceive  me,  women  still  washed  clothes  in  the 
town  spring,  clear  as  that  of  Bandusia.  One  coach  sufficed  for  all  the 
travel  to  the  metropolis.  Commencement  had  not  ceased  to  be  the 
great  holiday  of  the  Boston  Commonwealth,  and  a  fitting  one  it  was. 
The  students  (scholars  they  were  called  then)  wore  their  sober  unif  oi-m, 
not  ostentatiously  distinctive,  or  capable  of  rousing  democratic  envy; 
and  the  old  lines  of  caste  were  blurred  rather  than  rubbed  out,  as  ser- 
vitor was  softened  into  beneficiary.  Was  it  possible  for  us  in  those 
days  to  conceive  of  a  greater  potentate  than  the  president  of  the 
University,  in  his  square  doctor's  cap,  that  still  filially  recalled  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  ?  Dr.  Kirkland  was  president  then — a  man  of  genius, 
but  of  genius  that  evaded  utilization — a  great  water-power,  but  with- 
out rapids,  and  flowing  ^v^ith  too  smooth  and  gentle  a  cuiTent  to  be  set 
turning  wheels  and  whirling  spindles.  Shall  I  take  Brahmin  Alcott's 
favorite  word,  and  call  him  a  demonic  man  ?  No,  the  Latin  genius  is 
quite  old-fashioned  enough  for  me."  And  so  Lowell  goes  prattling  on 
about  Dr.  Kirkland  and  Dr.  Popkin,  and  the  long-buried  magnates  of 
Harvard  College,  whose  ranks  he  was  to  join  in  after  years. 

But  it  was  as  a  boy  that  he  looked  upon  Dr.  Kirkland,  who  was  dead, 
and  had  been  succeeded  in  the  presidency  by  old  Quincy,  the  father  of 
Lowell's  friend,  Edmund  Quincy,  before  Lowell  himself  entered  col- 
lege in  1834.  Dr.  Kirkland  had  married,  late  in  life,  a  daughter  of 
George  Cabot,  the  social  leader  of  the  Boston  Federalists  in  the  days 
of  Hamilton  and  Jefferson ;  and  Dr.  Charles  Lowell's  brothers  and 
cousins  were  also  Boston  Federalists,  and  belonged  to  the  same  social 
circle  with  Cabot  and  Kii-kland.     The  Lowells,  like  the  Quincys,  the 


172      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

Danas,  and  tlie  Wintlirops,  miglit  lay  claim  to  the  distinction  of  hav- 
ing been  gentlefolk  ever  since  the  settlement  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony ;  and  this  perception  of  caste,  and  some  pride  of  birth,  must 
be  recognized  among  the  early  and  later  traits  of  Lowell  the  poet. 
His  father  was  a  gentle  clergyman,  bi^ed  to  the  law,  like  his  ancestors, 
but  turning  to  the  ministry  by  a  natural  attraction  for  what  was  spirit- 
ual and  lovely.  He  married  Miss  Harriet  Spence,  of  New  Hampshire, 
a  gentlewoman  of  Scotch  descent,  who  taught  her  children  early  the 
melodies  of  Scotland,  and  trained  the  ear  of  her  youngest  son  to  that ' 
love  of  poetry  which  so  soon  appeared  in  him.  Russell  Lowell  (as 
he  was  commonly  called)  entered  college  before  he  was  sixteen,  and 
when  he  graduated,  in  1838,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  he  was  already 
ranked  as  a  poet  by  his  classmates  and  by  himself.  He  was,  in  fact, 
the  titular  class  poet  of  his  graduating  year,  and  wrote  for  his  "  class 
day  "  a  poem  of  some  length,  which  he  was  not  permitted  to  read  on 
that  occasion,  being  then  under  college  punishment,  but  which  he 
printed  not  long  after.  It  was  the  first  of  his  verse  which  found  its 
way  into  print,  unless  he  wrote  verses,  as  perhaps  he  did,  for  the  col- 
lege magazine,  " Harvardiana,"  of  which  he  was  an  editor  in  1837-38. 
He  was  also  secretary  of  the  Hasty-Pudding  Club  in  his  junior  year, 
and  in  that  capacity,  according  to  the  i-ules  of  the  club,  kept  his  rec- 
ords in  verse ;  but  none  of  these  have  ever  been  printed,  or,  in  fact, 
deserve  printing.  His  class  poem  has  little  merit  for  its  verse  or  its 
sentiment,  but  is  curious  as  throwing  light  on  the  "  environment "  of 
Lowell  at  that  time,  and  for  the  strong  contrast  it  presents  to  the 
opinions  and  purposes  of  its  author  a  year  or  two  after  it  was  written. 
In  college  he  was  far  from  studious,  and  was  inclined  to  be  gay  among 
his  gay  comrades ;  for  which  he  was  "  suspended  "  in  his  senior  year, 
and  sent  up  to  "  rusticate  "  in  Concord,  fifteen  miles  inland  from  Cam- 
bridge, under  the  tutorship  of  the  Rev.  Barzillai  Frost,  the  parish 
minister  of  Concord  at  that  time.  His  class  poem  was,  in  fact,  written 
at  Concord,  and  its  preface  is  dated  there  in  August,  1838  ;  so  that  the 
citizens  of  that  town  .may  claim  Lowell  as  one  of  the  "  Concord  Au- 
thors," along  with  Emerson,  Thoreau,  Hawthorne,  Channing,  Alcott, 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  1^3 

George  Curtis,  Julian  Hawttome,  and  tlie  other  literary  men  who  have 
lived  at  Concord  some  portion  of  their  days. 

When  the  young  collegian  went  to  spend  his  summer  in  Concord 
in  1838,  the  Transcendental  springtime  had  fairly  opened  there.  Em- 
erson had  published  his  "  Nature  "  a  year  or  two  earlier,  and  Bronson 
Alcott  had  begun  those  visits  to  his  friend  which  ended  in  his  own 
migration  to  Concord  in  1840.  Ellery  Channing  followed  him  in  1841, 
and  Hawthorne  in  1842.  Thoreau  was  born  in  Concord  (which,  he 
said,  "  is  my  Rome  "),  and  was  living  there  when  Lowell  came ;  but 
they  saw  little  of  each  other  then  or  afterward.  It  was  not  till  the 
first  hegira  from  Brook  Farm  that  George  Curtis  and  his  brother,  two 
graceful  Arcadians,  came  to  herd  cattle  and  play  the  flute  along  the 
meadows  of  the  Assabet  and  the  Musketaquid.  It  certainly  seemed 
for  some  years  as  if  the  saying  of  Alcott  was  to  be  fulfilled,  wherein 
he  wrote :  "  I  think  wise  men  and  excellent  women  have  no  right  to 
live  elsewhere  for  the  next  half -century."  Margaret  Fuller  and  Eliza- 
beth Peabody  came  and  went,  as  Miss  Mary  Emerson  had  done  for 
sixty  years  before  them ;  Mrs.  Sarah  Ripley  now  and  then  visited  in 
Concord,  and  came  there  to  abide  in  1847 ;  while  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar, 
like  Thoreau,  was  always  at  home  in  the  town.  Lowell's  boarding 
place,  when  he  was  not  living  in  the  family  of  Parson  Frost,  was  next 
door  to  Squire  Hoar's,  the  father  of  Elizabeth  Hoar,  of  the  Senator 
and  the  Judge  of  that  name.  At  the  other  end  of  the  village,  half 
a  mile  eastward,  on  the  Lexington  road,  stood  the  house  of  Emerson; 
and  half  a  mile  northward,  across  the  winding  river  and  the  meadows, 
rose  the  brown  wall  and  mossy  gambrel  roof  of  the  Old  Manse,  not  yet 
immortalized  by  Hawthorne's  pen.  It  does  not  appear  that  Lowell 
took  note  of  the  philosophy  or  literature  of  Concord  then,  except  to 
scoff  at  it.  Of  his  own  poem  he  said :  "  Many  of  my  readers,  and  all 
my  fi'iends,  know  that  it  was  not  by  any  desire  of  mine  that  this  rather 
slim  production  is  printed.  Circumstances,  known  to  all  my  readers, 
and  which  I  need  not  dilate  on  here,  considerably  cooled  my  interest  in 
the  performance.  .  .  .  There  are  a  few  grains  of  gold,  or,  at  least,  tin- 
sel, in  the  composition,  but  the  lead — oh !  word  infaust  to  poets — will, 


J 


174      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

I  fear,  far  outweigh  them."  This  preface  is  dated  "  Concord,  Massa- 
chusetts, August,  1838  " ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  poem,  among  the  notes, 
Lowell  says :  "  Speaking  of  Concord,  having  spent  most  of  my  vaca- 
tion in  that  town,  I  can  recommend  it  as  a  residence  for  any  student 
whose  precarious  state  of  health  requires  a  change  of  air.  Though  the 
situation  is  low,  the  air  is  salubrious.  The  inhabitants  (to  whom  I 
return  my  heartfelt  thanks  for  their  kind  attention  to  a  stranger)  are 
hospitable  and  pleasant.  Moreover,  I  can  bestow  the  still  higher  com- 
mendation on  them,  that  (which  is  rare  in  country  towns)  they  mind 
their  own  business  wonderfully.  P.  S. — I  have  been  informed  that  this 
last  is  only  at  one  end  of  the  town."  The  tradition  is  that  Lowell  was 
then  a  lively  youth,  who  joined  in  the  amusements  of  the  young  peo- 
ple and  visited  at  the  houses  of  their  elders — at  Mr.  Emerson's  partic- 
ularly, which  was  always  open  to  young  men  of  talent.  It  was  then 
that  the  acquaintance  was  formed  between  Emerson  and  Lowell,  which 
has  continued  unbroken  to  this  day — the  elder  poet  generously  over- 
looking in  the  younger  those  sallies  of  wit  and  follies  of  youth  which 
Lowell  himself  soon  saw  occasion  to  regret.  The  class  poem  contained 
some  of  these  impertinences,  as  will  appear  by  a  few  quotations. 

This  poem  is,  in  the  main,  an  attack  upon  Carlyle,  Emerson,  the 
New  England  abolitionists,  the  friends  of  woman's  rights,  the  Trans- 
cendentalists,  and,  in  short,  most  of  the  persons  and  classes  with  whom, 
a  few  years  after,  Lowell  identified  himself.  Carlyle's  "  Sartor  Resar- 
tus  "  had  lately  been  reprinted  in  Boston,  and  against  that  book  Lowell 
directed  his  invective,  with  a  glance  in  passing  at  Emerson,  who  had 
introduced  Carlyle  to  American  readers.     Thus  he  writes : 

**  Alas  for  poor  Philosophy  !  that  she 
In  her  old  age  should  come  to  beggary. 
And  turn  a  tailoress,  who  from  her  throne 
Once  ruled  fair  Greece,  and  called  the  world  her  own. 
Those  days  are  gone  when  poet,  hero,  sage, 
In  rapture  brooded  o'er  her  speaking  page  ; 
Those  days  are  gone,  and  now  her  only  friends 
Are  misty  rhapsodists  whom  Heaven  sends 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  175 

To  form  a  contrast  with  the  blessed  light, 

And  make  Truth's  holy  luster  seem  more  bright. 

Who,  blessed  with  souls  scarce  larger  than  a  broker's. 

Would  furnish  them  to  pots  and  pans  and  pokers. 

And,  having  made  a  '  universal  soul,' 

Forget  their  own  in  thinking  of  the  whole. 

Woe  for  Eeligion,  too,  when  men  who  claim 

To  place  a  '  Reverend '  before  their  name 

Ascend  the  Lord's  own  holy  place  to  preach 

In  strains  that  Kneeland  had  been  proud  to  reach. 

And  which,  if  measured  by  Judge  Thacher's  scale. 

Had  doomed  their  author  to  the  county  jail ! 

Alas  !  that  Christian  ministers  should  dare 

To  preach  the  views  of  Gibbon  and  Voltaire. 

Alas  !  that  one  whose  life  and  gentle  ways. 

E'en  hate  could  find  it  in  its  heart  to  praise. 

Whose  intellect  is  equaled  but  by  few. 

Should  strive  for  what  he'd  weep  to  find  were  true. " 

The  allusion  here  is  to  Mr.  Emerson  himself,  who  at  that  time  was 
still  known  as  "  the  Reverend  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,"  and  who  occa- 
sionally preached  in  1838,  at  Lexington  and  elsewhere,  if  called  upon 
to  fill  the  pulpit  of  some  ''  advanced  "  church,  or  to  give  a  labor  of  love 
to  some  friend  in  the  ministry,  fi*om  the  labors  of  which  calling  Mr. 
Emerson  had  withdrawn  four  or  five  years  earlier.  The  "  Kneeland  " 
referred  to  was  Abner  Kneeland,  once  a  minister,  who  had  become  the 
editor  of  a  deistical  paper  in  Boston,  the  "  Investigator,"  and  had  been 
punished  by  Judge  Thacher  for  blasphemy.  Elsewhere  in  the  poem 
Lowell  compassionates  the  sad  fate  of  the  American  Indians — the 
CheroKees  and  Seminoles  were  the  Poncas  of  1838 — and  compliments 
Emerson  for  his  letter  to  President  Van  Buren  on  behaK  of  the  Indians, 
written  in  1837.  As  this  letter  is  now  wholly  unknown,  it  may  be  well 
to  print  a  few  passages  from  it  which  I  copy  from  the  scrap-books  of 
Helen  and  Sophia  Thoreau,  the  sisters  of  Henry  Thoreau.  The  letter 
was  printed  at  the  time  in  the  "  Concord  Freeman,"  or  the  "  Yeoman's 
Gazette,"  from  which  one  of  the  Thoreaus  transferred  it  to  her  scrap- 


176      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

book.  It  is  addressed  to  Martin  Van  Buren,  then  President,  and  is  dated 
"  Concord,  23  April,  1838."  Here  are  some  passages,  not  always  follow- 
ing in  tlie  same  connection  that  they  have  in  the  letter  itself.  To  Van 
Buren  Mr.  Emerson  says :  "  The  seat  you  fill  places  you  in  a  relation 
of  credit  and  deamess  to  every  citizen.  By  right  and  natural  position, 
every  citizen  is  your  friend.  Each  has  the  highest  right  to  call  your 
attention  to  such  subjects  as  are  of  a  public  nature,  and  properly  be- 
long to  the  Chief  Magistrate,  and  the  good  magistrate  will  feel  a  joy 
in  meeting  such  confidence.  In  this  belief,  and  at  the  instance  of  a 
few  of  my  friends  and  neighbors,  I  crave  of  your  patience  a  short 
hearing  for  their  sentiments  and  my  own ;  and  the  circumstance  that 
my  name  will  he  utterly  unknown  to  you  will  only  give  the  fairer 
chance  to  your  equitable  construction  of  what  I  have  to  say."  He 
then  goes  on  to  state  the  Cherokee  question  as  it  then  existed,  and^  at 
the  close  of  the  letter,  says :  "  A  man  with  your  experience  in  aif airs 
must  have  seen  cause  to  appreciate  the  futility  of  opposition  to  the 
moral  sentiment.  However  feeble  the  sufferer,  and  however  great  the 
oppressor,  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  the  blow  should  recoil  on 
the  aggressor.  For  God  is  in  the  sentiment,  and  it  can  not  be  with- 
stood. The  potentate  and  the  people  perish  before  it ;  but  with  it, 
and  as  its  executors,  they  are  omnipotent." 

This  letter  of  Emerson's,  which  he  has  never  reprinted,  will  gen- 
erally be  thought  one  of  the  least  important  of  his  papers.  But  to 
Lowell  it  was  saying  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time,  and  he  praised 
it  accordingly  in  the  class  day  poem,  which  could  tolerate  neither 
abolitionists  nor  speculative  philosophers.  Thus,  for  instance,  while 
dilating  on  the  wrongs  done  to  the  Cherokees  and  Seminoles,  he  pro- 
ceeds by  way  of  antithesis,  speaking  to  the  abolitionists : 

"  Bold  saints  I  why  tell  us  here  of  those  who  scoff 
*  At  law  and  reason  thousands  of  miles  off  ? 

Why  punish  us  with  your  infernal  din 
For  what  you  tell  us  is  the  planter's  sin  ? 
Why  on  the  North  commence  the  fierce  crusade. 
And  war  on  them  for  ills  the  South  has  made  ? 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  177 

Can  ye  not  hear  where  on  the  Southern  breeze 

Swells  the  last  wailing  of  the  Cherokees  ? 

Hark  !  the  last  Indian  sighs  a  last  adieu 

To  scenes  which  memory  gilds  with  brighter  hue,"  etc. 

Already,  however,  the  young  student  begins  to  think  and  feel  in  a 
more  serious  strain.  At  the  end  of  the  poem,  and  bearing  date,  "  Con- 
cord, August  21,  1838,"  we  find  this  dedication  to  her,  as  we  suppose, 
who  afterward  became  his  inspiration,  and  enlisted  him  in  the  causes 
at  which  he  had  scoffed : 

"  Lady  !  whom  I  have  dared  to  call  my  muse, 
With  thee  my  lay  began,  with  thee  shall  end — 
Thou  can'st  not  such  a  poor  request  refuse 
To  let  thine  image  with  its  closing  blend  I 
As  turn  the  flowers  to  the  quiet  dew. 
Fairest,  so  turns  my  yearning  heart  to  thee. 
For  thee  it  pineth,  as  the  homesick  shell 
Mourns  to  be  once  again  beneath  the  sea — 
Oh  !  let  thine  eyes  upon  this  tribute  dwell. 
And  think — one  moment — kindly  think  of  me  ! 
Alone — my  spirit  seeks  thy  company. 
And  in  all  beautiful  communes  with  thine. 
In  crowds — ^it  ever  seeks  alone  to  be. 
To  dream  of  gazing  in  thy  gentle  eyne  ! " 

This  is  almost  the  only  passage  in  the  class  poem  worth  remember- 
ing, and  this  less  for  what  it  says  than  for  the  long  vista  it  opens  into 
the  future  life  of  the  poet.  AVhen  he  appeared  again  before  the  world 
mth  a  volume  of  verse,  it  was  as  the  lover  of  the  woman  of  heart  and 
genius  whom  he  married  a  few  years  later,  and  whose  death  in  1853 
was  the  keenest  sorrow  that  ever  came,  or  ever  can  come,  to  the  poet. 
"A  Year's  Life,"  which  Lowell  published  in  1841,  a  year  and  a  half 
after  his  college  graduation,  has  never  been  republished,  and  of  its 
seventy  poems  he  has  reprinted  scarcely  more  than  a  sixth  part  in  the 
later  collections  of  his  verses.  There  is  some  reason  in  this  exclusion, 
for  many  of  these  early  poems  do  not  satisfy  the  stricter  requirements 


178      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

of  advancing  years,  but  the  happy  and  glowing  life  which  they  exhibit 
atones  for  many  defects.  This  spirit  of  joy  and  youth  shines  out 
everywhere  in  "  A  Year's  Life,"  and  is  calmly  worded  in  the  proem, 
which  has  seldom  been  quoted,  though  some  of  the  verses  that  follow 
are  as  popular  as  any  that  Lowell  has  written.     We  shall  name  it 

THE  TEINITY. 

"  Hope  first  the  youthful  Poet  leads, 
And  he  is  glad  to  follow  her  ; 
Kind  is  she,  and  to  all  his  needs 
With  a  free  hand  doth  minister. 

"  But  when  sweet  Hope  at  last  hath  fled, 
Cometh  her  sister  Memory ; 
She  wreathes  Hope's  garlands  round  her  head. 
And  strives  to  seem  as  fair  as  she. 

"  Then  Hope  comes  back,  and  by  the  hand 
She  leads  a  child  most  fair  to  see. 
Who  with  a  Joyous  face  doth  stand, 
Uniting  Hope  and  Memory. 

"  So  brighter  grew  the  earth  around 
And  bluer  grew  the  sky  above  ; 
The  Poet  now  his  guide  hath  found, 
And  follows  in  the  steps  of  Love," 

This  last  assertion  must  be  taken  more  literally  in  Lowell's  case  than 
the  protestations  of  most  lovers  and  poets ;  for  he  did,  indeed,  "  follow 
in  the  steps  of  love,"  year  after  year  ;  and  he  had  found  his  guide  in 
more  senses  than  one.  The  lady  to  whom  he  gave  so  much  affection, 
and  who  was  worthy  of  it,  used  to  say :  "  James  falls  in  love  with  me 
every  day  anew,"  and,  indeed,  the  tie  between  them  was  no  common 
one.  It  was  recognized  by  all  their  friends  as  the  most  natural  and 
yet  romantic  affection,  concerning  which  there  was  less  need  of  reserve 
and  privacy  than  in  most  engagements,  so  that  this  ardent  volume,  "  A 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL,  179 

Year's  Life,"  was  regarded  as  an  open  love-letter  wMcli  the  initiated 
might  read.  And  the  hopes,  the  aspirations,  the  purposes  of  Maria 
White  were  all  noble  and  open ;  she  joyfully  ranged  herself  and  drew 
her  friends  on  the  side  of  public  causes,  like  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
the  elevation  of  the  poor,  the  enfi'anchisement  of  women,  the  reforma- 
tion of  outgro^\^l  customs  and  laws,  such  as  those  which  enacted  the 
penalty  of  death.  Those  who  had  the  felicity  to  know  her  have  said 
that  in  such  generous  causes  she  was  irresistible,  not  so  much  by  what 
she  said,  although  she  had  the  gifts  of  melodious  speech  and  high 
intelligence,  but  by  the  charm  which  inspires  sympathy  with  all  that 
is  excellent,  when  we  see  it  in  living  form  before  us.  She  was  herself 
the  goodness  that  she  advocated,  and  which  no  longer  needed  an  ad- 
vocate with  those  who  saw  and  listened  to  her.  It  is  hard  to  estimate 
the  influence  which  a  person  so  noble,  loving,  and  beloved,  naturally 
exerts  on  those  who  come  within  the  sphere  of  her  attraction.  "  I  was 
born  in  a  country,"  said  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  when  tempted  to  betray 
the  secret  of  Lavalette's  escape  from  prison,  "  where  the  social  virtues 
are  regarded  as  public  virtues,  and  I  have  never  trained  my  memory 
to  a  breach  of  friendship."  In  a  still  higher  sense  are  the  social  vir- 
tues of  women  like  Maria  Lowell  puhlic  virtues,  and  it  would  be 
treason  to  memory  and  to  friendship  not  to  proclaim  how  important 
was  the  influence  of  such  women  in  the  great  struggle  between  slavery 
and  freedom  in  America.  To  such  women  the  emancipation  of  our 
slaves,  and  the  rescue  of  our  country  from  a  hideous  form  of  demo- 
cratic oligarchy,  was  fairly  due ;  and  among  them  Maria  Lowell  holds 
a  high  place,  though  her  own  personal  activity  was  so  limited  and 
ceased  so  early.  To  her  we  owe  the  constant,  timely,  and  effective 
support  which  the  poet  of  the  younger  generation  of  New  England 
gave  to  the  anti-slavery  cause  when  it  needed  all  the  aid  that  genius 
and  social  culture  could  bring  it.  She  was  the  center  of  a  circle  of 
young  persons  who  devoted  themselves  as  sincerely  to  the  good  of 
humanity  as  most  persons  of  their  station  and  surroundings  do  to 
pleasure  and  society ;  their  pleasure  and  their  society  were  for  the  good 
of  others.     The  native  traits  of  Lowell  would  hardly  have  made  him, 


180      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

as  he  was  for  years,  a  leader  in  this  circle,  but  hand  in  hand  with  his 
betrothed  he  went  forward  in  this  chorus  of  youths  and  maidens  until 
they  became  a  part  of  the  high  national  tragedy  just  coming  forward 
on  our  American  theatre.  Then  followed  the  strophe  and  antistrophe, 
the  satyrical  play  in  which  Hosea  Biglow  was  the  masked  actor,  and 
finally  the  shock  of  war  itself.  Long  before  that  event  the  lovely 
leader  in  this  procession  had  vanished,  the  band  of  friends  was 
broken,  the  lover  had  become  the  husband  and  father,  had  been  twice 
and  thrice  bereaved,  and  was  to  endure  other  wounds  from  which  the 
heart  bleeds  long  and  never  wholly  heals  itself.  But  the  work  of  life 
had  been  done,  the  training  of  the  poet  had  been  completed,  and  he 
who  had  joined  in  the  contest  when  success  seemed  impossible,  now, 
in  his  Commemoration  Ode,  sung  the  victory  achieved.  The  period  of 
one-and-twenty  years  between  the  publication  of  Lowell's  first  anti- 
slavery  verses  in  1844  and  his  recital  of  the  Commemoration  Ode  in 
July,  1865,  just  after  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  the  very 
crisis  that  he  had  sung,  and  for  which  his  year  of  betrothal  had  pre- 
pared him.  He  was  married  in  December,  1844,  just  before  the  an- 
nexation of  Texas,  against  which  the  anti-slavery  men  of  all  parties 
had  contended,  and  which  precipitated  the  final  struggle  between  the 
North  and  the  South.  From  that  time  onward,  as  for  four  or  five 
years  earlier,  James  Russell  Lowell  and  Maria  White  were  among  the 
most  radical  of  the  abolitionists — the  friends  and  followers  of  Garri- 
son, Phillips,  Maria  Weston  Chapman,  Mrs.  Child,  Ellis  Gray  Loring, 
Francis  Jackson,  Edmund  Quincy,  and  the  other  extreme  emancipa- 
tionists. They  were  contributors  to  the  "  Liberty  Bell,"  the  anti-sla- 
very annual,  and  Lowell,  like  his  intimate  friend  Quincy,  was  also  a 
frequent  contributor  to  the  "  Anti-Slavery  Standard,"  the  organ  of  the 
abolitionists  in  New  York.  It  was  in  this  journal,  rather  than  in  the 
more  famous  "  Liberator,"  that  Lowell's  poems  appeared  of tenest,  from 
1843  to  1846  ;  after  which,  for  a  time,  he  wrote  for  the  Boston  "Cou- 
rier," then  edited  by  Joseph  T.  Buckingham.  The  "Courier"  pub- 
lished the  first  series  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers,"  beginning  in  June, 
1846,  and  ending  in  1848,  while  in  the  autumn  of  the  last-named  year 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  181 

tlie  "  Fable  for  Critics  "  appeared,  and  gave  Lowell  his  first  distinctly 
literaiy  success.  In  1844  lie  liad  published  a  volume  of  poems,  open- 
ing with  his  "Legend  of  Brittany,"  and  in  1843,  in  conjunction  mth 
Robert  Carter,  a  journalist  of  rare  learning,  he  had  made  his  first 
venture  in  magazine  editing  by  commencing  "The  Pioneer,"  from 
which  passages  have  already  been  cited,  but  which  few  persons  of 
the  present  generation  have  ever  seen.  It  continued  but  for  three 
months — January,  February,  and  March,  1843 — a  double-columned 
magazine  of  forty-eight  pages,  "  with  engravings  of  the  highest  char- 
acter, both  on  wood  and  steel,"  and  with  contributions  from  Poe, 
Hawthorne,  John  Neal,  John  S.  Dwight,  Dr.  Parsons,  Jones  Very, 
Miss  Barrett  (soon  to  be  Mi-s.  Browning,  who  sent  over  from  Lon- 
don a  poem  called  "  The  Maiden's  Death "),  Whittier,  William  W. 
Story,  Maria  White,  and  Lowell  himself.  The  latter  concealed  the 
authorship  of  certain  pieces  under  various  disguises.  Thus  Lowell's 
beautiful  love-song  beginning : 

"  0  moonlight !  deep  and  tender, 
A  year  and  more  of  one, 
Your  mist  of  golden  splendor 
On  my  betrothal  shone  !  " 

was  printed  in  the  "  Pioneer,"  but  ascribed  to  "  Henry  Peters."  Two 
sonnets,  which  seem  to  be  Maria  White's,  and,  if  so,  are  addi-essed 
to  Lowell,  are  signed  "  V."  In  these  we  find  lines  which,  if  they 
did  not  imply  Lowell,  might  well  have  done  so,  and  which  ai'e  worthy 
of  his  betrothed : 

"  I  love  thee — ^not  because  thy  love  for  me. 
Like  a  great  sunrise,  did  o'ervault  my  day 
With  purple  light,  and  wrought  upon  my  way 
The  morning  dew  in  fresh  emblazonry. 
The  truth  that  in  thine  eyes  holds  starry  throne. 
And  coins  the  words  that  issue  from  thy  lips,. 
Heroic  courage  that  meets  no  eclipse, 
And  humbler  virtues  on  thy  pathway  strewn — 


182     THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

These  love  I  so,  that  if  they  swift  uprise 

To  sure  fulfillment  in  more  perfect  spheres, 

Still  will  I  listen  underneath  the  skies 

For  thy  new  song,  with  seldom  dropping  tears  ; 

And  midst  my  daily  tasks  of  love  will  wait 

The  angel  Death — ^guardian  of  Heaven's  gate." 

At  the  close  of  tlie  third  number  of  the  "Pioneer"  Mr.  Carter 
inserted  this  note,  after  which  the  magazine  passed  into  oblivion. 
"  The  absence  of  any  prose  in  the  present  number  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 
Lowell,  and  the  apparent  neglect  of  many  letters  and  contributions 
addressed  to  him  personally,  will  be  sufficiently  explained  by  stating 
that,  since  the  10th  of  January,  1843,  he  has  been  in  the  city  of  New 
York  in  attendance  upon  Dr.  Eliot,  the  distinguished  oculist,  who  is 
endeavoring  to  cure  him  of  a  severe  disease  of  the  eyes ;  and  that  the 
medical  treatment  to  which  he  is  necessarily  subjected  precludes  the 
use  of  his  sight,  except  to  a  very  limited  extent.  He  will,  however, 
probably  be  enabled,  in  time  for  the  fourth  number,  to  resume  his 
essays  on  the  poets  and  dramatists,  and  his  general  supervision  of  the 
magazine."  The  "  Pioneer  "  died,  presumably  from  lack  of  subscribers, 
but  the  essays  went  on,  and  were  published  in  1844-45  under  the 
name  of  "  Conversations  on  the  Poets."  This  was  Lowell's  first  critical 
work  of  any  moment,  and  it  contains  the  germ  of  those  lectures  on 
English  literature  which  he  gave  at  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston  in 
1854-'55,  and  which,  in  turn,  became  the  nucleus  of  his  brilliant  uni- 
versity lectures  on  literature  at  Cambridge,  from  1857  onward.  In 
1844  he  contributed  to  Emerson's  "  Dial,"  and  to  the  "  Democratic 
Review,"  for  which  also  Hawthorne  and  Thoreau  wrote  ;  in  1847-49 
he  wrote  for  the  "Massachusetts  Quarterly  Review,"  in  which  he 
noticed  Thoreau's  first  volume  when  it  came  out  in  1849  ;  and  in  1853, 
and  for  several  years  after,  he  wrote  much  for  "  Putnam's  Monthly  "  in 
New  York.  In  1849  his  poems  were  collected  in  two  volumes,  while 
the  first  series  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers  "  was  published  in  a  volume  in 
1848,  and  soon  after  his  romantic  poem,  "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal," 
which  is  the  most  popular  of  his  serious  poems. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


183 


During  this  sea- 
son of  literary  and 
political  activity,  Mr. 
Lowell  lived  in  social 
retirement  at  Elm- 
wood  with  his  wife, 
his   father,  and  oth- 


er kinsfolk,  and  his 
few  intimate  friends 
about  him.  His  chil- 
dren died  in  infancy, 
all  save  one  daugh- 
ter, Mabel,  now  the 
wife  of  Mr.  Edward 
Burnett,  of  South- 
borough  ;  but  except 


The  brink  of  some  wood-nestled  lakelet.''^ 

"  The  Birch-Tree." 


184      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

this  bereavement,  and  the  ill  fortunes  of  tlie  country  in  its  political 
degradation,  lie  had  little  occasion  for  sorrow,  and  passed  a  life  of 
quiet  felicity,  in  pursuits  most  congenial  to  his  nature,  which  loved 
learning,  but  also  ease  and  leisure.  He  had  studied  law  after  leaving 
college,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  open  an  office  in  Boston ;  but  he 
had  fewer  clients  than  Charles  Sumner,  and  soon  gave  up  all  desire 
for  them.  He  inherited  a  modest  competence,  and  his  wife,  the 
daughter  of  a  wealthy  citizen  in  Watertown,  a  mile  or  two  from 
Elmwood,  was  also  independent  in  fortune.  They  lived  simply  and 
hospitably,  traveling  but  little,  dining  once  a  week  with  Mrs.  White 
at  Watertown,  amid  the  "  elm  trees  dark  and  dewy  "  and  the  orchard 
shadows  of  the  garden  where  he  had  wooed  his  bride.  They  were 
the  center  of  a  cultivated  circle  in  Cambridge,  yet  apart  from  the 
University,  which  in  those  years  was  unfiiendly  to  abolitionists  and 
reformers  of  all  sorts.  Longfellow  was  his  neighbor,  and  so  was 
John  Holmes,  brother  of  the  poet,  and  Dr.  Estes  Howe,  a  leader 
among  the  voting  anti-slavery  men  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  mar- 
ried a  sister  of  Maria  White.     When  Lowell  said,  in  1848, 

"  I  can  walk  with  the  Doctor,  get  facts  from  the  Don, 
Or  draw  out  the  Lambish  quintessence  of  John," 

he  meant  Dr.  Howe,  Eobert  Carter,  and  John  Holmes,  who  were  then 
his  daily  companions.  Not  far  off  in  Cambridge  lived  his  sister-in-law, 
Mrs.  Anna  Lowell,  a  noble  woman,  the  mother  of  his  two  nephews, 
Charles  and  James,  whose  death  in  the  Civil  War  he  commemorated  so 
pathetically  in  the  second  series  of  "Biglow  Papers":' 

*'  Eat-tat-tat-tattle  thru  the  street 

I  hear  the  drummers  makin'  riot. 
An'  I  set  thinkin'  o'  the  feet 

That  follered  once  and  now  are  quiet — 
White  feet,  ez  snowdrops  innocent. 

That  never  knowed  the  paths  o'  Satan, 
Whose  comin'  step  there's  ears  thet  won't. 

No,  not  life-long,  leave  off  a  waitin'. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  185 

"  Why,  hain't  I  held  'em  on  my  knee  ? 

Didn't  I  love  to  see  'em  growin', 
Two  likely  lads  ez  wal  could  be, 

Hahnsome  an'  brave,  an'  not  tu  knowin'  ? 
I  set  an'  look  into  the  blaze, 

Whose  nater,  jes'  like  theirn,  keeps  climbin' 
Ez  long  'z  it  lives,  in  shinin'  ways. 

An'  half  despise  myself  for  rhymin'. 

"  Wut's  words  to  them  whose  faith  and  truth 

On  War's  red  techstone  rang  true  metal. 
Who  ventered  life  an'  love  an'  youth 

For  the  gret  prize  o'  death  in  battle  ? 
To  him  who,  deadly  hurt,  agen 

Flashed  on  afore  the  charge's  thunder, 
Tippin'  with  fire  the  bolt  of  men 

That  rived  the  rebel  lines  asunder. " 

This  happened  long  after  the  period  of  which  we  now  speak — 
the  allusion  in  the  last  stanza  is  to  General  Charles  Russell  Lowell — 
the  "  young  Telemachus "  of  his  uncle's  "  Moosehead  Journal,"  who 
died  in  Sheridan's  famous  cavalry  fight  at  Winchester  in  1864. 

We  find  pictures  and  suggestions  from  this  "  Moosehead  Journal," 
or  from  the  wanderings  in  the  New  England  forest  which  it  describes, 
in  many  of  the  poems  of  Lowell.  The  verses,  "  To  a  Pine-Tree,"  com- 
mencing— 

"  Far  up  on  Katahdin  thou  towerest," 

are  of  this  period,  and  so,  perhaps,  is  "The  Bifch-Tree,"  wherein 
occurs  the  fine  lines  portraying  to  the  eye  by  words  the  delicate 
beauty  of  the  birch  as  seen  in  the  forest : 

*'  Upon  the  brink  of  some  wood-nestled  lakelet. 
Thy  foliage,  like  the  tresses  of  a  Dryad, 
Dripping  about  thy  slim  white  stem,  whose  shadow 
Slopes  quivering  down  the  water's  dusky  quiet, 
Thou  shrunk'st  as  on  her  bath's  edge  would  some  startled  Dryad." 

24 


186      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

In  "  Tlie  Fountain  of  Youtli "  the  poet  goes  back  to  earlier  remi- 
niscences than  those  of  the  Maine  woods,  of  whose  beauty  and  solem- 
nity Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Longfellow,  and  Thoreau  have  preserved 
the  impression  in  their  pages.  It  is  some  nearer  and  more  civilized 
woodland  that  Lowell  pictures  in  these  musical  rhymes,  suggestive  of 
Poe,  but  with  a  lighter  and  more  wholesome  melody : 

'•'  'Tis  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
By  no  sadder  spirit 
Than  blackbirds  and  thrushes 
That  whistle  to  cheer  it ; 
All  day  in  the  bushes 
This  "woodland  is  haunted. 
The  little  fount  gushes. 
First  smoothly,  then  dashes 
And  gurgles  and  flashes. 
To  the  maples  and  ashes 
Confiding  its  joyance. 

*'  'Tis  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
A  vast  silver  willow — 
I  know  not  how  planted — 
(This  wood  is  enchanted 
And  full  of  surprises) 
Stands  stemming  a  billow, 
A  motionless  billow. 
Of  ankle-deep  mosses." 

[] 

Wherever  this  Watertown  woodland  may  be,  it  was  one  of  the 
haunts  of  the  poet,  as  well  as  of  the  blackbird  and  the  thrush,  and  we 
may  surmise  that  it  could  be  seen  from  the  top  of  that  long  hill  which 
makes  a  place  for  Lowell's  "  Footpath,"  beyond  which  fancy  dreams 
of  regions  of  ampler  ether  and  diviner  air : 

''  It  winds  athwart  the  windy  hill. 

Through  sallow  slopes  of  upland  bare. 
And  fancy  climbs,  with  footfall  still. 
It's  narrowing  curves  that  end  in  air. 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


187 


" '  Tis  a  woodland  enchanted.'''' 

"The  Fountain  of  Youth.' 


188      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS  OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

By  night,  far  yonder,  I  surmise 

An  ampler  world  than  clips  my  ken, 

Where  the  great  stars  of  happier  skies 
Commingle  nobler  fates  of  men." 

Maria  Lowell  died  in  October,  1853,  after  a  long  illness  and  a  still 
longer  period  of  delicate  liealth ;  too  fragile,  as  slie  was,  to  endure  the 
cares  and  burdens  of  married  life,  thougli  with  the  tenderest  aifec- 
tion  about  her.  Her  death  and  its  coming  shadow  were  the  bitterest 
of  life's  sorrows  to  her  husband,  between  whose  earlier  and  later  life 
this  affliction  stood  as  a  gulf  of  separation.  Men  are  never  quite  the 
same  again  after  such  experiences ;  there  are  chapters  in  the  book  of 
memory  that  can  never  be  reopened,  and  fields  of  their  former  life  that 
they  will  not  voluntarily  revisit.  It  was  so,  no  doubt,  with  Lowell, 
and  certain  changes  that  have  since  been  noticed  in  his  habit  of  look- 
ing at  life  may  rather  be  ascribed  to  the  pangs  of  memory  than  to 
deliberate  change  of  opinions.  His  poetry,  seldom  pathetic  before, 
has  since  become  so,  and  there  is  one  short  strain  in  his  "  Ode  to  Hap- 
piness "  which  conveys  the  very  hopelessness  of  regret,  in  words  that 
the  rest  of  the  poem  only  weaken : 

*'  Wing-footed  !  thou  abid'st  with  him 
Who  asks  it  not ;  but  he  who  hath 
Watched  o'er  the  waves  thy  waning  path. 
Shall  never  more  behold  returning 
Thy  high-heaped  canvas  shoreward  yearning  ! 
Thou  first  reveal'st  to  us  thy  face 
Turned  o'er  the  shoulder's  parting  grace, 
A  moment  glimpsed,  then  seen  no  more — 
Thou  whose  swift  footsteps  we  can  trace 
Away  from  every  mortal  door. " 

Yet  the  poet's  bereavement,  instead  of  driving  him  back  into  soli- 
tude, after  a  little  interval  opened  the  world's  career  more  vsddely  be- 
fore him.  He  became  more  hospitable  than  ever  to  young  men,  many 
of  whom,  like  the  present  writer,  owe  him  a  debt  of  personal  kindness 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


189 


whicli  they  would  gladly 
repay.  He  turned  witli 
closer  devotion  to  litera- 
ture, and  his  regard  for  the 
young,  together  with  his 
ripened  scholarship,  gave 
him,  in  1855,  the  profes- 
sorship in  his  university 
which  Longfellow  held  be- 
fore him.  He  began  the 
duties  of  this  position  in 
1856,  and  performed  them 
for  twenty  years,  until  he 
went  abroad  in  1877  to 
take  the  Spanish  mission. 
From  this  he  was  trans- 
ferred in  1880  to  the  Court 
of  St.  James,  where  he 
more  than  makes  good  the 
position  held  there  by  Ev- 
erett, Bancroft,  and  Mot- 
ley, his  predecessors,  in 
former  years.  In  1857,  in 
company  with  Emerson, 
Holmes,  Longfellow,  and 
many  who  are  no  longer 
living,  he  founded  the  "At- 
lantic Monthly,"  of  which 
for  five  years  he  was  the 
editor.  In  planning  this 
magazine  he  had  occasion 
to  revisit  Concord,  where, 
in  Emerson's  study,  the 
scene  of  so  many  notable 


"/iJ  winds  athwart  the  windy  hiUy 

"The  Foot-path." 


190      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

conversations,  the  new  venture  was  talked  over,  and  its  character 
determined. 

As  a  college  professor,  Lowell  had  a  hard  task  set  before  him  from 
the  first,  or  what  would  have  been  hard  to  a  man  less  gifted  and  genial 
than  himself.  He  was  the  successor  of  Mr.  Longfellow,  whose  gentle 
and  hospitable  nature,  adorned  with  learning  in  the  form  most  attrac- 
tive to  young  men,  had  made  him  very  popular  in  a  college  where  it 
was  not  the  fashion  then  for  professors  to  be  popular.  Dr.  Sprague, 
in  his  sketch  of  President  Kirkland,  relates  how  that  good  man  and 
perfect  gentleman,  when  visiting  Princeton,  where  young  Sprague  was 
then  studying  theology,  waded  through  snow-drifts  one  winter  morn- 
ing to  make  a  call  on  the  youth  who  had  been  one  of  his  own  gradu- 
ates at  Cambridge — ^whereat  the  young  theologians  wondered.  "  That 
the  president  of  Harvard  College  should  have  come  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  in  a  snow-storm  and  then  ascended  three  flights  of  stairs,  for  noth- 
ing more  important  than  to  express  his  good- will  to  one  of  their  own 
number,  seemed  to  them  an  instance  of  condescension,  which  at  least 
distinguished  him  from  all  other  presidents  of  colleges  with  whom 
they  were  acquainted."  Mr.  Longfellow  had  this  same  good-will 
toward  his  students ;  and  so,  as  it  proved,  had  Mr.  Lowell ;  while  in 
scholarship  the  two  friends  were  so  unlike  that  what  Longfellow  had 
supplied,  Lowell  had  no  occasion  to  furnish,  and  what  Longfellow 
lacked,  Lowell  could  well  supply.  With  the  serious  students  he  pur- 
sued serious  studies,  with  the  less  grave  he  could  be  gay,  and  he  not 
only  tolerated  their  companionship,  but  encouraged  it,  taking  walks 
with  his  class  sometimes  as  Agassiz  used  to,  and  allowing  them  to 
feel  at  home  with  him.  Gradually,  too,  he  became  one  of  the  pillars 
of  the  University  in  public  and  social  matters,  developing  a  talent  for 
dinner-table  oratory  which  few  had  suspected  in  his  earlier  days,  and 
which  is  a  distinct  gift,  as  valuable  in  an  American  college  as  to  know 
the  French  language  is  indispensable  in  European  diplomacy. 

Early  in  Lowell's  professorship  the  anti-slavery  struggle  took  on  a 
new  phase  in  the  settlement  and  defense  of  Kansas,  where,  in  1856-58, 
the  battle  was  really  fought  upon  picket-lines  that  afterward  came  to 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL.  191 

a  long  alternation  of  the  defeats  and  victories  of  grand  armies.  Lowell 
at  that  time  cherished  the  thouo^ht  of  transferrino;  his  Hosea  Big-low 
by  emigration  to  Kansas  to  tell  the  story  of  what  was  going  on  there, 
but  "  the  flighty  purpose  never  was  o'ertook,"  and  so  he  lost  his  oppor- 
tunity to  sing  the  exploits  of  John  Brown,  the  Kansas  hero,  whom  he 
never  saw.  One  Sunday  evening  in  1857  Mr.  Lowell  was  invited  to 
meet  Brown  at  Theodore  Parker's  house,  upon  one  of  those  missionary 
visits  of  the  old  captain  to  Boston  which  he  frequently  made  in  his 
later  years.  But  some  trifling  circumstance  prevented,  just  as  William 
Hunt  was  prevented  two  years  later  from  carrying  out  his  purpose  to 
paint  Brown's  portrait,  so  that  the  belated  Puritan  w^ent  to  his  death 
without  his  poet  or  his  painter. 

Undoubtedly  Lowell's  greatest  fame  has  been  won,  not  by  his  ener- 
getic poems  of  the  youthful,  w^orld-reforming  period,  nor  by  his  more 
thoughtful  and  profound  verses  of  the  later  world- wise  period — ^majes- 
tic as  some  of  these  poems  are,  in  single  passages  and  in  general  effect 
— but  by  his  unique  and  original  "  Biglow  Papers."  This  work  is  his 
contribution  as  a  creative  writer  to  the  world's  literature,  and  this  is 
also  the  fructification  of  his  whole  life,  as  the  "  Don  Quixote  "  was  of  the 
life  of  Cervantes.  It  is  too  early  as  yet  to  pronounce  definitely  upon 
such  a  work,  but  it  may  be  compared  to  the  masterpiece  of  Spanish 
literature  in  more  ways  than  one.  Like  that,  it  has  a  genuine  national 
character,  and  is  as  distinctly  American  as  "  Don  Quixote  "  was  Spanish ; 
like  that,  also,  it  is  the  national  experience  reflected  in  the  mind  of  a 
scholar  and  man  of  the  world,  and,  therefore,  brings  with  it,  besides  its 
rusticity  and  racy  flavor,  the  peculiar  aroma  of  a  literature.  These 
poems  are  not  ballads  or  songs  ;  they  have  a  dramatic  quality,  and  be- 
long to  comedy.  Some  wonder  has  been  expressed  that  a  scholar  like 
Lowell,  passing  most  of  his  life  in  towns  and  colleges,  should  have 
caught  so  well  the  rustic  manner  of  viemng  things.  But  that  has 
been  his  study  quite  as  much  as  books  have  been,  and  New  England 
as  it  now  exists,  and  much  more  as  it  was  in  Lowell's  youth  and  early 
manhood,  everywhere  furnishes  this  rural  and  popular  character  in 
which  Lowell  delights.     By  the  roadside  at  Elmwood,  in  the  taverns 


192      THE  HOMES  AND  HAUNTS   OF  OUR  ELDER  POETS. 

of  the  Port,  along  tlie  meadows  of  Concord,  in  the  woods  of  Maine, 
and  even  in  the  streets  of  Boston  and  New  York,  he  has  studied  at  his 
leisure  and  for  all  his  life  these  Yankee  traits  which  he  depicts.  Bry- 
ant, our  earliest  good  poet,  as  he  walked  through  New  York,  had 
the  air  of  a  prosperous  New  England  carpenter;  Lowell  himself 
describes  Emerson  as  "  a  Greek  head  on  right  Yankee  shoulders,"  and 
compares  Parker,  the  great  preacher  of  Boston,  to  a  plowman  of  Lex- 
ington, or  "  brown-fisted  Hobnail  hoeing  a  drill."  In  America  we  are 
strongly  suifused  with  these  Saxon  peasant  qualities,  while  there  is 
also  something  ideal  and  universal  in  the  mind  of  our  countrymen. 
Lowell  has  had  the  gift  and  the  good  fortune  to  seize  these  traits  in 
their  immediate  combination,  when  there  are  at  once  the  strongest  con- 
trast and  the  closest  chemical  union,  and  thus  he  presents  us  Parson 
Wilbur,  Farmer  Biglow,  and  all  his  subordinate  persons  in  genial 
comedy.  He  could  not  have  done  this  so  well  had  he  not  possessed 
these  mixed  qualities  in  his  own  genius,  which,  with  all  its  English 
leanings  and  universal  culture,  is  strictly,  broadly  American,  and  the 
"  Biglow  Papers  "  its  highest  expression  thus  far.  What  is  yet  before 
him  in  literary  achievement  can  not  be  told,  but,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
two,  most  men  have  done  their  best  work,  though  they  may  not  have 
reached  their  highest  fame. 


THE     END. 


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